I Ain't Tha One

I am back to being completely miserable. I went to bed at 9:20pm last night without any dinner, without watching TV, without washing my face and woke up at 7:00am for work shivering in my bed, shivering in the hot shower, shivering while I blow-dried my hair, shivering while I tried to throw something tasteful and alluring together for my speed dating adventure tonight which I am not excited about. Nausea mixed with fatigue mixed with bloating mixed with lethargy and fogginess and a chill down through my bones. It's awful. I feel uncomfortable in my body and my mind. I don't feel like me. My lower back is stiff like rusty hinges that desperately need oil no matter what position I am in. I lie flat on my back and it aches. I lie on my stomach and try to make sure both hips are evenly placed on the mattress and I still can't get comfortable. My lower spine aches it aches it aches it aches. I am supposed to go to a rheumatologist. Since I have already self diagnosed myself with Ankylosing spondylitis, (which sounds like a Greek delicacy) I have not made my appointment because the last thing I need is for my suspicions to be confirmed, as they were in 1998 when I self-diagnosed my ulcerative colitis; man am I in the wrong profession. I even took the Ankylosing Spondylitis Screening Quiz on About.com and passed with flying colors. My eyes twitch involuntarily and always feel strained and sometimes I blank out and lose 10 seconds. My head is constantly throbbing like there is a vice around it and I am always thirsty. There isn't enough liquid in the world to quench my thirst. My teeth are sensitive to cold, and everything I eat makes me feel weird. Shit ain't good.

I didn't want to go to work today. I was on the subway standing up, praying for someone to give me a seat. Couldn't they tell how wrecked I look? Couldn't they tell I was about to cry? Couldn't they see that I could barely stand and was holding on for dear life. Finally I got a seat. Then the battle was keeping my head up, not throwing up, not crying, not turning around and going home. Should I really work? Can I work? I don't think so. I can't work or function when I feel like this. Despite all the many good days I've had in recent months, they have not obliterated the past or my fears for the future. And I can't spend my future like this. I was just getting comfortable. Of course getting comfortable means daring myself to wait until noon to take my morning pills or eating pizza 11 days in a row for the first time in eight years (I stopped eating dairy and wheat when I was first diagnosed in 1998). Getting comfortable means wearing my devil-may-care attitude again and getting dizzy while running at night in the snow on the Brooklyn Bridge but still detouring through DUMBO instead of going straight home. It means a little bit of denial.

That's all well and good but days like today remind me that I still have this disease and that I can't live like this. There has to be another way. When it's bad it's so bad. Today is so so so so bad. It's so bad that the martyr is coming back. How can I go speed dating when I feel like this? How can I date at all when this is always waiting for me in the wings to steal my happily ever after from me? This is not a life. I am too vibrant and enthusiastic and fun-loving and adventurous for restrictions like this. It isn't me. I sympathize with the grandfather I never loved because he was always snippy and depressed about his life. He lived until 93 but as long as I knew him he had no quality of life. He couldn't do anything. If he were a car he'd have been a lemon. In my lifetime he had strokes, open heart surgery, adult diabetes, toes removed because they were 'dead,' cataracts surgery, he was on blood thinners, he fell all the time in the apartment. He was miserable and I don't want his fate to become mine.

I am back on my lonely island where everything goes wrong and nothing works out. Yesterday was the day of the loss of control. I lost control in my all day email conversation with my sister. We both did. An ongoing issue between us resurfaced yesterday about her relationship with her boyfriend and about her boyfriend's character. I tried to tread lightly and gingerly yet be clear about my feelings all at the same time but it is a charged subject and she is uber-sensitive and defensive to begin with so it got very, very out of control in a bad way. Hearing from Mrs. Illinois yesterday also made me lose control, albeit in a very different way. I did not at any point feel blood streaming through my body or my hands shaking or my mouth dry up or a pit in the bottom of my stomach. But she is continuing what her husband started. He acted and I reacted. And every action of his was out of the blue and absolutely shocking, out of the box and made my world teeter totter a little bit. Of course his early declarations of love and early, spontaneous proposals of marriage were good surprises but they were the precursor to the lonely nights I was desperate for his company when I was pregnant and told the baby was scary small or when the March after we broke up he decided he wanted to get back together or the way and the timing he broke up with me in the first place. Mrs. Illinois' email rocked my world too but it was purely the surprise factor, not devastation of any kind, not an earthquake. Hearing more from her yesterday made me lose control in my desire for more of her. As much sense as her email made for why she contacted me, I can step out of that enough, i.e.; step in the box where the regular people live and understand that her emailing me is bizarre no matter how much she related to my blogs and my urgency in wanting to know more and meet her and talk to her in person is even more bizarre. This is all despite the opposition I am getting from my friends, who are in the box. Anyone who saw me after the dramatic demise of my relationship from Illinois has every right to worry; no one wants to see me go back there. My curious nature prevails and her email was more amazing and detailed and comprehensive and intelligent than the last. Her latest email compounds the allure I felt towards her after receiving the first email. And today my dad is under the knife. I don't think anything more needs to be said about that or how apprehensive and little control I have there. Yesterday was exhausting. And today I am suffering for it and trying to pick up the pieces and tape myself back together and maintain what little control I have.

And so I did. I worked until I couldn't focus anymore and went to see my dad. I skipped speed-dating to keep my mother company at the hospital and made sure I saw my dad's green eyes open with my own green eyes. He was on the table for seven hours. Seven hours I was at work trying to work knowing my dad was on the table. Seven hours I was sitting with my mom in the waiting area while she talked to my uncle while I asked the nurses whether he was in recovery yet while my sister left while my brother and his girlfriend came and left while my mom talked to my dad's partner while my mom and I went out to dinner while my stomach kept turning and turning and turning and turning until I saw those green eyes open with my green eyes and heard my dad tell me loved me and realized that my health wouldn't matter if he wasn't in my world and as long as he remains in my world I'd sacrifice most anything. The damndest thing is, I will never be given that option. He will be lost and my world will shake and shake and shake until I don't recognize it anymore and there won't be a damn thing I can do about it. Loss of control.