Playing for Time

The old adages made their fame by hitting the mark time after time, and they’re maddening because so true. What I’m kicking against this morning is that the more I want something the more it escapes my reach.

What I want is robust health, but it’s clearly too much to ask, as every time I think I’m almost there, something stupid happens, and not always my fault. Is it Karma? And when do I wear out the bad stuff?

Yes I’m blue, and yes this is therapy. This year has been a physical struggle since March when the screaming gut meemies hit and put me flat on my back for two weeks. Things never got right with my system, so my primary care doctor sent me to a phalanx of specialists who determined that there’s nothing seriously wrong with me except high BP, a wrecked spine, and dysthymic disorder, which is described thusly: a smoldering mood disturbance characterized by long duration as well as transient periods of normal mood. {How fun is THAT?!}

It’s simply under there, and some days, like yesterday, I feel all day like I need to cry, but don’t, and never really know what it’s about. It’s frustrating, a little debilitating, and a lot annoying, partly because it takes effort to tamp it down enough not to blow Kim’s day out of the water, and therefore exhausting. I went to bed early last night and left him up watching the 49ers, just so I could lay it all down. Also, my back hurt like a mofo, which is a whole other story.

Long story shortened, because SO MANY WORDS, my wonderful primary care put me on a new BP med that works so well (and she did seriously caution me about this) I passed out for a split-second one of the first nights I was on it, went down hard on our polished-concrete floor, and put myself back a few squares on the Health Chart. Out of an overabundance of optimism, we didn’t inform anyone, but after 3 weeks of spasms and enforced rest because I had no choice, we gave in and saw my pain specialist yesterday for a sacro injection, which is starting to take effect, and I’m supposed to get an x-Ray today if I can.

I’m sitting here looking for the words to say how much this is working on me. I’m trying hard, I’m doing it right, I’m keeping a BP log for one doctor, a different diary for another, watching my caffeine intake, monitoring my sodium, taking my meds religiously, trying to include enough protein in my diet despite being turned off by most meat products, limiting alcohol, letting Tylenol suffice as pain med, plus Cymbalta that doubles as a hit to the low-grade blues. And then this goofy body turns on me again.

Why do I tell you this stuff, greater world? Why do I bare my rotten soul to you with such abandon? Because we’re humans together on this big blue marble, and if dumb things happen to me they happen to other people, too, and those people need to know they’re not alone.

All my life I’ve had bizarre accidents that played hell with my structure and maybe my DNA, who knows? But it messes with my psyche if I’m going to become a fall risk in my own home, with Big Kim right there and can’t keep it from happening. I’m a boomer, an Ok boomer, and I like it fine. I just don’t want to be Officially Old. Not yet.

I looked after six older people for quite a few years, did lots of different things for them, from the mundane to the intimate. I know that look of panic, that total vulnerability, and I’m not ready for that, I’m not there, don’t want to be there, and the helplessness of finding yourself on the floor and wondering if it’s going to mean an ambulance ride is awful.

I’m a give-it-to-me-straight girl. Just tell me and I’ll deal. But I do fully acknowledge that I don’t want an X-ray that says I have a hairline fracture in my back – let’s not play that, ‘k? Let’s get this show back on the road to health. Today. Damn. It.