As I settled down to type this, I had to remind myself to sit up straight. My daughter would have a field day with me in the mornings, when I hunch over and shuffle through the house in search of coffee. Again today I got out of bed shortly after I woke at four, or I should say started to wake. I don’t think I fully have yet, and I’m slouching again already.
Yesterday I got out of bed about the same time, having “slept in” until about six the past week or so and paid the price for my sloth in unmanageable pain that lasts all day. I have no idea why this is, why additional sleep and rest would make me feel worse. But I’m not alone—I mentioned it in passing to someone else with Lyme and she’s noticed the same pattern. She doesn’t wake as early as me, but if she lingers in bed she too suffers from worse than normal pain.
Today I harbored no desire to snuggle back into the comforter and tempt fate. The weather is unseasonably warm and I wanted to throw on my sweats and sit on my porch. Of course, throwing of any kind presents significant challenges of late (unless we’re talking temper tantrums during rage week), so it was really more an awkward slithering than anything else.
The application of hard lessons and the rare opportunity to enjoy such a temperate morning were not the only things driving me from my bed today. Yesterday was shot day, and much of the meds are still amassed in my right bum cheek. (Why are they called cheeks?? Do we smile there and not know it? I know I’ve been accused of talking out my ass once or twice, but I don’t get the cheeks. If I remember, I’ll have to look it up when I’m done here.) (Crap. I just remembered that I have looked it up before; I just can’t recall the answer now.)
I digress, doubly this time. Shame shame shame. I’ve thought about editing out these side-routes and offshoots, the blue highways of Lymeland perhaps—the little roads that seem to wander off into nowhere, or into time warps where it seems the past three decades were just a dream. But I’ve been advised to leave them as is if I want these entries to offer up a reflection of my true interior landscapes. Or was it because misery loves company?
Not that I would say I’m miserable overall. Yesterday I was miserable, which brings me back to the shot. See, I knew the road would wend its way back to the interstate eventually. My wife offered me a choice of taking it before or after work. The last injection wiped me out and I had an appointment yesterday morning, so I chose after work. Never again. I don’t know what I was thinking.
I don’t think I was thinking at all, actually. This was only the third shot, and the first my wife has given me at home. At the end of the day, we both had had enough of people (our own sorry selves included). It was a sad state of affairs, me crabby and anxious, my wife fed-up and frustrated.
We were so tired we both forgot a cotton ball to hold against the injection site, and my wife’s hand had jiggled a little bit so when she pulled out the needle she gasped. I peered around to see what the hell was going on (gasping is not a good sign) and saw a steady trickle of blood running down into the small of my back. Then I gasped (still not a good sign). All I thought of in that moment was cardiac arrest. If she injects these antibiotics intravenously I could die of a heart attack within minutes. And there’s nothing like the threat of cardiac arrest to bring on its symptoms.
While she ran to the bathroom to grab a tissue (she must have been panicking, too, since there was a box sitting on my night table—we just hadn’t pulled one out and kept it handy) I used my pajamas to stop the bleeding and gave myself a calming mental slap on the face. My wife had checked to make sure she wasn’t in a vein before proceeding. She’d really have to try hard to find a vein, from what I’ve been told by myriad grumbling phlebotomists. I hadn’t just imagined the jiggling needle. The poor thing was so tired and nervous that her hand was shaking and countless capillaries fell victim to its sway.
The bleeding stopped almost immediately, and obviously I didn’t have a heart attack. And next time will be better. It will be in the morning, at the start of our day, before I’ve had a chance to build up petty grudges and grievances against the world and my small place in it.
No comments:
Post a Comment