STUPID SICK

 

4/24/24

Stupid Sick

Yesterday I hoped to die. Wish I was dead. Let me be gone. If this is my future, I’m looking for the exit.

WTF? How did I get this miserable in one day? Two days ago, my only odd health thing was maybe in my mind?  I had to think “swallow” to make it happen. No pain, no cough, no big.

It sure got me thinking about a good friend, Mark, a bio/dynamic genius gardener, now gone, he had cancer of the tongue, years of miserable slow downhill slide, and one of his major problems in his last years was “swallow.” Hmm, this was after having parts of his tongue cut out, twice.

Not what’s going on with my deal, nope, but it got my attention, usually “swallow” isn’t even a thing to command, it just happens. But for a few days, I had to think “swallow” to encourage the action. Whatever. I’m fine, drink more water. Maybe I got some bug as I attended a large memorial service for a most wonderful woman, Donna, last week? After years of avoiding all such gatherings and now that covd ain’t so lethal, I needed to be with those loving people, good for my soul. That.

Add more pressure. Wednesday was my time to help out at our local beautiful MLK park here in my ‘zoo, we few good friends do what we can to pick up trash to give the Park some dignity. I care about it, love to do it, it matters, and only for an hour or two, once or twice a month, no big.

Why, you ask?  It is a destination site, as a world-class fine-art sculpture by Lisa Reinertson of Dr. King anchors this small city Park. Google it, the sculpture is truly sacred and deeply honored by most who visit. I’ve been doing this volunteer love labor for 16 years, hell yes. This Park is the living room for our un-housed, also locals who find time to meet friends, they deserve some grace and beauty, yes they do. Years ago, some grumpy friend, when asked if he would help our MLK Park work, grumbled, “What? You expect me to clean up after those lazy people who just sit there for hours?” My response, “Oh no, we only pick up trash that the wind blows in.” In reality, most folks who love that space and come to chat with friends aren’t prepped for picking up trash, gotta have lots of empty bags, gloves, yard-work clothes, and focus for that work. We do.

Ok, I admit, these last few years, being in my late 70s, next day, my lower back is pissed. I understand, if I did that motion a few times a week, those muscles would be used to the action. Not me! Once or twice a month, that’s how we roll there. And I’ve got my tongs, a new addition to my work tools, so I don’t have to bend all the way over to get hundreds of bits of trash. Probably 200 bend overs that day. We filled two jumbo hefty bags. I’m so smart, she said.

But wait! More stupid!

Wednesday after the Park work, I stopped by my local grocery store/pharmacy, and decided to chat with the pharma gal to see if/when I was supposed to get my second shingles shot. I thought I’d be getting emails from them, nothing, so maybe I’m not in their system? Nope, I’m in there, she liked my new ‘old person’ health coverage (wish I could say the same – United Healthcare wants me to get some free stuff at Walmart? Fuck no, I refuse to walk in that place, their policy of keeping most workers just under full-time so they don’t have to pay benes and keep most at minimum wage while the owners are filthy rich - grrrrr). Chat chat with the pharma gal, blah blah blah, oh, what the hell, poke me now, I’m here, let’s. I filled out the clipboard questionnaire, nothing about “swallow.” I’m healthy, let’s.  Pharma guy comes with the needle. The first shingles shot, a few months ago, was no problem other than a tender spot where the needle punctured my upper arm. Nothing like my first covd shot, early 2021, damn, my arm felt like I’d taken a line drive at the injection site. Second shingles shot today, ok, hit me.

Home, carried shopping stuff up two flights of stairs twice (yeah, my building has an elevator, I use it less than once a year, I want to burn calories). I looked out my window and could see remains of what was now scattered around a piece of land I love. Right next to my apt. complex is the backside of a big company, Kalsec, and right out my door are fields, woods, wetlands, wild critters (I hear the coyotes 2-4 times a week after dark), and I can walk there as I please. It’s my church, I LOVE that land. This makes sense to me: some American Indians have said, “… the white people go into a building to talk to God. We go out in the woods and God talks to us.”

          The day before, checking out my 3^rd floor slider door, I had noticed a big black something out there, got my binocs, oh, somehow some big hefty bag is rolling around in the wind, hmm. As I got home Wed., the bag and all contents were out and doing their trash show in a 20-acre field once used to grow paprika.

Earlier, this field had been a horse field, as previous owner was a trotters/pacers horse guy and used much of his “parcel,” 320 acres, to deal with horses.

Looking back, here’s what the whites did to the American Indians who lived right here for centuries. The white ones broke another treaty and all area American Indians were forced to live in a 3-mile zone that became downtown Kalamazoo (which was on the edge of where I live). Then, in 1840, the whites with guns and “authority” forced all American Indians to walk away. Sad to report that the final meeting of white men and chiefs happened right at what is now MLK Park. There’s a very odd bronze plaque on the outside of the front door of our Amtrak station that gives a victor’s account of the final removal of area American Indians. It’s ugly.

So, stupid #4, what the hell, this land is trashed, I’m dressed for the work, go. For about an hour, no big thing, used my tong thing, looks like some Vet disabled guy had cleaned out lots of old paperwork, lots of random trash too, now this land looks beautiful. Yes. Stupid yes.

          It seemed like a normal evening, but by bedtime I wasn’t feeling so great, settle down for sleep, tomorrow will be better. No. Hell no. Somehow, somewhere in my body, that tiny swallow thing, that thing?  It turned to nasty. Cough cough. Not violent coughs, nothing coming up, but cough every 10 minutes. WTF? Cough thing didn’t let the sleep thing happen, grrrr. Middle of the night, now stupid sick show rolls. By 2: a., I was filling a puffs tissue with one blow, LOTS of nose snot. Again. Again. Again. My lower back thing was starting to scream, and my left arm was VERY pissed. And damn, is that a headache? I haven’t had one in years, aren’t I supposed to feel a pounding thing? What I had was a wall of “fuck you” pain behind my eyes. Shit.

Once I could find strength to get out of bed, really, ten steps to the kitchen, which felt like walking to Paw Paw, finally got to my bottles of Vit. C, took two big ones, that might make a dent in this snot show. Back to bed, cough, roll this way, no, cough, roll that way hell no says my back, no, cough, evil arm pain when trying to turn to left side, cough cough, under 6 blankets and freezing, cough, 10 min. later full body sweat, cough, again, again, no sleep tonight. 4: a, awake, cough thing was getting violent, then I realized - - oh shit, my neighbors, one on the wall just beyond my bedroom and the neighbor just under my apt., damn, am I keeping them from sleeping? Years ago, former downstairs woman had an advanced smoker cough, and once in a while she would violently cough for 3, 5 minutes, and oh boy, did I hear that in the middle of the night - - damn, this COUGH thing could be a nasty noise to them, ugh. But trying to muffle the sound was almost impossible, as the cough would come so fast I couldn’t do anything but let it out. COUGH. COUGH. COUGH. KOFF.  Sleep? Maybe 10 min here and there. Drink water, kc, drink water. That means getting to the kitchen, oh hell, later.

Somehow in 10 minutes of sleep, I had a vivid nightmare. I opened my door to the hallway of the 3^rd floor apartment complex, and someone had taped some stupid cutout pages from some magazine all around my door. As I started removing them, neighbors, all strangers, started walking toward me, smiling like they knew me. I knew none of them, but they pushed their way past me and into my apartment, smiling all the while. I was very unhappy, did NOT want these strangers roaming through my private space, they would not leave, more came, I couldn’t lock my door, I tried to yell “GET OUT!!!” but couldn't, my voice was not capable of anything above a whisper. Woke up in a panic, that time the cough was welcome, sure didn’t need any more of that nightmare.

Dawn. Thank God it was a cloudy morning, as where my bed is, I get first sun. By then, any light was evil. Forced myself to drink water, but not feeling any thirst, no. But drank anyway. I realized I couldn’t trust my normal signals, like that thirst thing. Nope. And more mysterious, not one second of hunger. Zero. Very strange, as I love love love food. Not now. Hmm, shit, only the pain thing works.

I could do nothing that day but try to get some sleep. Laying down was the only thing possible, and that was just miserable too. Cough cough cough COUGH. Day wore on, I tried to understand the deal, drank water, rolled around, and worse, just my luck, my fav npr station, Ann Arbor, is having fundraiser. I am grateful for their work, listen a lot, stopped giving $ years ago, I helped a tiny bit many moons ago, but not opening my slim wallet now for them. They sure get to count my part in their #s, did you know they can see how many are listening at any given time? That # helps sell themselves to their funders.

Yeah, npr is a happy part of govt., and they don’t do anything to piss off Uncle Sam. NPR=National Pablum Radio. For instance, that recent Air Force guy who set himself on fire in Washington, D.C., protesting USA/Israel/Gaza, Arron Bushnell, that guy? Our media mentioned it once then nothing more. Can’t rattle our military, eh? We da best. We untouchable. The guy even left a note of why he did this. Check my facebook, it did make it there. The living nightmare in Gaza loomed in my heart, sickening sickening. Seems like Israel is digging their own hole to hell. What was once great sympathy for the 10/7/23 shocking crimes has now, for me, turned to great sympathy for the millions of Palestinians facing starvation, murder, and watching their children die from drinking shit/salt water. Trenches for the dead, over 34,000 in these last 6 months. Israel makes more people hate them by the minute.

I had to admit part of my pain was listening to the fundraiser. Click. Off.

Day wore on, I was hurting. Re-read the blah blah blah from the shingles shot thing. Well yeah, “tiredness, muscle pain, headache, shivering, fever, stomach pain, and nausea” hmm, 5 out of 7. What luck…

 Maybe I’m having caffeine withdrawal? Could that be the headache thing? I start each day with a 8.4 oz. Red Bull, 80 mg. caffeine, less than a mug of coffee. But since I didn’t do that, hmm? The idea of drinking anything but water was waaaaaaaaaaaay not gonna happen. And should I take some ibuprofen? That might give my lower back pain temp relief to get some sleep, but that would require eating something. Years ago a great RN friend, Marie, gone now, wisely advised to never take those on an empty stomach, it’s like swallowing a bomb to the stomach lining. Eat something before that swallow. Well, that idea was impossible, eating anything was impossible. Hours went by slowly, cough, roll around, KOFF, suffer the boredom, get up and watch Colbert? Impossible. Good news, at least I wasn’t flooded with snot. So that. More good news, my snot was clear, no yellow or green. Ok, my body just wants to get rid of junk. Ok.

3:a Friday, oh my God, this is horrible. No matter how I lay, my back is PISSED. My head is angry, my lack of sleep is real, shit. CoughcoughCOUGH KOFFFFFFF. Found out the hard way that the cough thing is directly connected to the lower back thing, both are linked to the pee thing. This is ugly. Funny, but ugly. Hard to shut down the pee thing while laughing. Get the fuck up, kc, go find those wonderful local Farmer’s market Zelma ginger/molasses cookies, I always LOVE those, eat a bite, if necessary force it, and down some ibuprofin. Took about a ½ hr. to get all that together, the cookie was weird in my mouth, but swallow, then swallow 2 ibu’s. Damn, now that I ate that bite, gotta brush teeth, this is work. Back to bed. Snot show again. Roll, roll, roll. Cough, COUGH COUGH. At least late-night BBC isn’t having fundraiser…

Should I call somebody? Am I gonna die in my snot? But - - oh, no. If I call anyone, they’re gonna think I’m stupid to not go to ER. And guess what? I am NOT going to ER. I’ll die right here before I turn myself over to the AMA. Don’t like any Dr. around my body. Don’t like their focus on allopathic medicine (treat the symptoms with meds, reaction to those meds, no problem, more meds is how we roll - - grrrr). Yeah, if I broke my leg, ok. But whatever I have would only prompt them to give me big meds, and hell no, I’ll ride this out for now. Good news, me being 77, I take no prescription anything, weird, eh? And yes, I down lots of supplements (55 years ago my super’s super, Rose, taught me about what a health food store was, totally new to me), eat very good, some tiny yoga, and by the Grace of God, most usually have good health.  Anyway, calling anyone might encourage them to come see about me, oh hell no. Having a visitor wasn’t worthy, I felt like shit warmed over, looked worse, smelled worst, and impossible to clean up for any reason. Lay low, stay low, and pray for better health ahead. Don’t have strength to walk that far to my door, don’t want to give this crap to anyone else, just fuckin’ deal with it bitch.

I actually got two hours of sleep, thanks ibuprofen, and today I’m kinda functioning. Sunny today, and my eyes can handle light, so something’s going right. Still zero appetite, but I have enough fat to keep me alive for months. Concentrate on the good part, no shingles for me. And maybe tonight real sleep. Hope.

Oh, such optimism. Snot was only getting started, went through a box of puffs in short order. Tried to eat something, ½ bowl of soup was too much. The sleep deprivation thing was really bringing me down. I recalled another good friend, Donny, probably a genius guitar maker (luthier), now gone, and his words to me years ago. Donny had a lifetime of narcolepsy and described it this way to me, “Karen, how would you feel if you didn’t sleep for 72 hours? That’s the way I feel all the time.” OMG.

Then it got worse. That cough thing? Oh shit, now the junk was moving, dark green nasty tiny pieces, again, again, again.  Exploding KOFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. KOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOFF. Stupid sick show.

So much hard news, Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan. Imagine peace.

For ten days/nights, slightly better, I’m gonna live. Turned down invite to have Easter food with folks, still not healthy enough to hang with loves. But soooo much better than last week. Whew, this side of the grass looks good. Time for some chess, it’s my Sunday joy date, always with a glass of Bailey’s Irish Cream and a puff. I play against me, I always win/lose. A few weeks ago this was not a pretty time, Stupid Sick Chess. Try again. Trying to teach myself algebraic notation. Good goal, shitty time getting there. Good news: I queened a pawn!

And then the long-awaited item came in the mail. WIZARDS IN SPACE, LITERARY MAGAZINE, issue 09! My super neph, Garrett, got his poem, “This is the Year” published. If he calls it a poem, it’s a poem. He’s now a published author and a cutting-edge respected thinker, yippie! The 21^st century is in good hands.