"How Very Quickly Can A Pleasant Exchange Become A 'Rant'"

“ How Very Quickly Can A Pleasant Exchange Become A ‘Rant’”

06/20/12

To my very dearest, dearest friends, and ever loyal readers, perhaps I should try to explain myself; presently, I am still very ill with bronchitis and pneumonia, and my Primary, now, wants me to try a new antibiotic. Will this one work? Who knows…only, that I would rather be sick, stuck at home, than sick, trapped in some hospital.  With this in mind, I may have inadvertently increased the length of both my illnesses, and my utter frustration with them; and, as you know, dear ones, since I first fell ill with all this shit just before the end of May, it has just gone on and on.

In the Physician’s Desk Reference ( P.D.R.), which is now bigger than the bible, surely is there no anodyne, no palliative, no ever feeling better? I had sought to answer in a more pleasant tone, my friend ‘mimi’s’ thread, but I regret my ire got the better of me, and so to ‘mimi’; ‘jpooh’; and ‘damsel’, please, please accept my most sincere apologies.  It is my fondest hope that they ( and you ) will forgive me.

06/18/12

My dear friends, 'mimi', and ‘jpooh’, all my regards for the start of a wonderful week!

Mimi, I especially want to thank you for posing a most compelling question about 'safe zones'.

And while I am probably not alone in this, but my 'safe zones' change, expand or contract, due mostly to how I am feeling that day. I know that sounds simplistic, but as I seem to have inherited a bucketful of physical and psychological illnesses, these--in turn--greatly affect my 'sphere of influence'.

Part of the problem is that I no longer drive, nor do I have a car. That eliminates probably 90% of my opportunity to explore, more--gradually--at a time. I am very much dependent on neighbors to shop for me; or, failing that, pay the $30.00 delivery fee to a local grocery store that nonetheless is impossibly too far away to walk with portable oxygen, and a cane.

I can take the County cab/bus that conveys me to my doctor's appointments, but, nowhere else. So, to a degree, I am already trapped by circumstance.

And, if I have had a particularly bad night before, or am in pain, or feeling ill or depressed, there are days that pass during which I cannot even go out to my mailbox.

Living as I do in Florida, I could blame the heat, no sidewalks, limited public transportation, lack of a social network to go to movies, restaurants, etc.

It would also seem that I am adversely affected by the random movements of large numbers of people, which is why I will never go to the mall, for example.

And, sometimes, living alone with Daisy makes me less likely to engage in social discourse; many times, errant telephone calls just annoy me, and distract me, much less having unannounced visitors.

Not to mention--at 58--a fear factor of traffic, loud voices, crashes, unexpected hyper stimuli

which cause me to panic, and to be further agoraphobic.

Some days ( especially after having read disquieting or horribly shocking news ) my safe zone is measured by the inside of my house, as a lot of things just scare me now; I am afraid of robbery, assault, worse, because of my having opiate and narcotic medication in my possession. And on 'bad' days, I don't even bother to look out of my windows, nor open the blinds.

I am being as completely honest with you as I am able. Yes, sometimes my home is an admitted 'velvet prison' by choice, I suppose.

Any help or suggestions, or encouragement would be most welcome.

My dear friend, 'damsel',

At this time of a day which has been long, ( as I'm still most ill ), has proven to be one remarkably free of anything purposeful that I might otherwise have contemplated, and...maybe done. All I did--dear--was exist--which I guess beats the alternatives. But the question still begs an answer.

What do we as nominal personalities have to do to, in effect, earn our keep as so-called individuals with perhaps decrepit bodies, and clouded minds, but, still, with some idea to make of each day a day worthwhile?

Were we kind? Did we help another find his or her way? Did we comfort or feed a child, stop to assist someone elderly? Or, did we--instead--pass away the gloom of another long, long day, measured only by our ragged inhalations?

It is thus easy to confuse one day with the next, and...why not, as they begin to run together like a water color picture, but without the definition, or the clarity.

This is not an exciting life. It is, rather, an eat, bathroom, computer, eat, sleep cycle of monumental unimportance.

And--of course--I am in an assorted agony of pain, congestion, and lack of volition.

Often, I am most heartily ashamed to have to beg for services for which there is always NO money.

And, as afternoon passes into evening, into the inevitability of night, heralding yet another day too soon upon us, what have we to say for ourselves?

So subtle it is, my dear friend, how dreams unravel, and die. And--in consequence--how little we seem to care about it.

I DO have a quiet, little house, dear 'damsel', and since the volume on my computer is turned down, and Daisy is quiet, as is the neighborhood, I think that I---too--would like to dose up, don my best pajamas, and crawl gratefully into a freshly made bed, and would probably doze until the middle of the night. Should I--perhaps--lift dear Daisy into the bed with me; could she then get down without assistance?

Let us say that I am depressed, and miserable. Let us further say that I feel numb (except for pain), and so feel nothing. Nothing. Nothing at all.

I passed resentment, earlier, with my last, uncontrolled coughing fit. I feel both sweated and chilled.

I have no one to love me, nor could I expect such devotion to what now amounts to being old and ugly, and in more need of a nursemaid, than a true companion.

I often feel as if I'm sitting at a deli counter, holding a ticket upon which is written the 'sideways eight'...infinity.

No wonder I am sometimes afraid to go to bed at night, though my sometime afternoon naps produce no such nightmare, no such fear.

"Real-time" friends are so few; I'd have to Google-Earth them. And why not? They have their own lives, into which I have been most marginally scripted. But, funny...that's the way of it.

At least four times--today--I have dipped into the well of pain medications;; but they will not cure pneumonia, now of three week's duration. Nor, will they tidy-up a broken heart.

My SSDI is just a tease income; my $16.00 a month in food stamps just baffles me, for who can eat a seventeen cent meal? When did I gladly sacrifice fun for quiet, and reliable safety? Not even little goblins rattle my front door knob. And the mail was--as usual--an assemblage of junk, fliers, and bills I cannot pay.

Have I quite forgotten how to laugh?

My fourteen year old dog, Daisy, comes up to me to put her head on my knee; her brown eyes are so large, so inquiring. She cannot tell me where she hurts. I don’t know who needs consoling most. I love her frightfully, clinging to another life in the house.

We both ate Banquet spaghetti dinners, a buck a piece; I gave her all my meatballs save one.

Soon time to dose up again. There is a pain that NO medication will touch.

I used to be a person; now, every day is like being on 'house arrest'. Damn the Lupus. Damn the Fibro. Double damn with sugar on top, the Agoraphobia.

Yes, dearest 'damsel' the bed DOES have its allure, for I am tired, and...tired of it.

But shit...it was never my intention to invade your pleasant thread by pissing in the soup, and making of this a rant. I am so, so sorry, dear. For, if you cannot forgive, please forget. These typed kilobytes will all too soon pass away, as they should.

Heck, I'll probably use this someway in a diary post; nothing wasted. Nothing lost.

Please do take care, as two things will never change: 1) my gratitude for your having kindly befriended me, and 2) that I love all of you dearly,

‘Zahc’/Charles