Category: Checking In

Tick Tock

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One month as of tomorrow.

Four weeks and five days.

Twenty three working days.

If the cube move happens on schedule, which I doubt, ten more in-office days.

And then two weeks of paid vacation.

And then?

The rest of my abbreviated life, I suppose. The real work begins to find the home I’m going to die in, to make it a place I can live in until that happens, and then finally – FINALLY – my immediate life can be all about just dealing with my symptoms as they come. To deal with my abilities as they go. To actually live the rest of my life until I’ve had enough.

Some not-insignificant part of me is grateful to have an Out of the workforce. It’s a forced retirement, but it’s an escape from the 9-5 capitalist bullshit that has eaten the prime years of my life. The prime of yours, too. I’ve always been a damn Liberal, but more than ever, I am seeing the absolute stupidity of the 40 hour workweek. The need to work, to justify your living with a paycheck.

And it IS a justification.

I’ve seen sneers turn into surprised respect when I tell people what I do for a living. Yeah fucker, this weird-haired, pierced and tattooed bitch has a real life respectable job that requires actual smarts. I earn more money than you, asshole, surprise.

And with the surrender of my employment comes a surrender of that piece of me, that legitimacy in the eyes of strangers that should mean fuck all and yet…it does. It really does. I wish it didn’t. I know it doesn’t mean anything, not really, but our fucking capitalist society has keyed so much of our identities into our paychecks – and who provides that paycheck – that it is going to be really hard to let that go. From being respectable to being a goddamned leech on our social security system even though I HAVE PAID INTO IT MY WHOLE WORKING LIFE, YOU ASSHOLES, I DESERVE THIS BECAUSE I PAID FOR IT AND IT IS MINE. I paid to let your grandma afford her groceries, would have paid more, gladly, as I earned more, to share what I have. That’s what social security is FOR. That’s why we have it. And yet now that it’s time to cash in, even though it will be a very limited time, I feel less than deserving. Am made by much rhetoric and many conservative motherfuckers to feel like I deserve nothing.

Believe me, fuckers, I’d rather be working instead of dying.

One more month of being valid.

Four weeks plus five days plus two weeks vacation.

One more month of being a job instead of a person.

Six weeks of being justified in my existence.

This is such unbelievable bullshit.

Dream a Little Dream of What Now?

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Now that ALS has started to incorporate itself into my subconscious, more and more of my symptoms and new realities have started showing up in my dreams. I can usually still walk. My hands usually still work. ALS isn’t tied into my subconscious self on a permanent basis, yet; it hasn’t become fundamentally part of who I am in my dreams. But occasionally ALS will tiptoe into my dreams and I’ll be in a wheelchair, or I’ll have that dream where you’re trying to run but can’t, but it’s not panic inducing because …of course I can’t.

My current reality with Radicava has apparently assimilated itself into my subconscious as well. In real life, I have a port which is attached to a tube that snakes its way into my arteries. Once a month a nurse comes, and stabs a bent needle through my skin into that port, from which an IV line can be run. We attach medication to that IV line, and thus my infusions are done. Gravity plays a hefty part in this role and the flow can go both ways; we found out the hard way that if there is not medication running into the line, then blood can run out. There has been a couple of times that we’ve been a little delayed in cutting off the flow at the end of the infusion while unhooking the bag, and dark arterial blood starts running up the line. Blood is *supposed* to be able to travel up the line, it’s one of the things they look for when they first access the ports, to know that there is good flow. That’s probably because the first couple of times I’ve accidentally bled into the line he freaked out a little bit. Now we are super casual about it, because it’s honestly no big deal. We just have to push a little saline down the line to get my blood back in my body, and throw that line into the biohazard ban instead of the trash. NBD.

…It is still a little unnerving to know that if I really wasn’t paying attention and things went wrong, when the port is accessed, I could just…bleed out.

I guess my subconscious thought so too. Last night I dreamed that J was helping me with the infusion while we were in some hotel, and somehow the IV bag came off and we didn’t notice. The end of the line just spilled out into nothingness, and I had bled out over a pint before either of us noticed. In my dream J instantly went into panic mode, and started furiously trying to clean up the blood once we clamped off the line, while I assured him that a pint of blood is practically nothing, and people donated this much all the time, and I was fine. I conceded that cleanup was definitely in order, the place looked like a murder scene a little, though. I was more worried about explaining blood stains in the carpet to the people that actually owned the place.

And then the cop showed up.

Suddenly in my dream I’m explaining to a very nervous and suspicious policeman about ALS, and what it is, and what the infusions are all about, and how this was a medical mishap and is not an attempted murder, actually, despite what it looks like, while J is furiously scrubbing blood out of the carpet. I think in the end I convinced the cop that everything was okay, but J was still panicking and worried that he was going to get arrested for trying to murder me.

So yeah, apparently Radicava is normal enough to me now that it’s showing up in my subconscious dreams. That’s a new one.

Biding Time

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I have about 9 weeks of work left (7 weeks of actual work and then 2 weeks vacation). Until that time is over, I can’t exactly be as candid about work as I’d like in certain situations, and be public and honest about all the reasons I’m very, very, very glad to be leaving. Dumbass CEOs firing 10% of the global workforce to please the shareholders, lecturing his employees about business ethics and integrity after getting busted doing insider trading, and THEN getting caught having an affair with an underling aside. (Bye, Felicia)

I can tell you, though, that I’m really, really glad to be leaving my particular job. I’ll miss the idea of work, the regularity, the sense of being needed, and a lot of the coworkers that I’m leaving behind, but I’m very glad that an end is in sight to my working career. Frankly, the job’s become kind of a piece of shit lately and the universe is telling me it’s time to be gone.

Perfect case in point, my manager asked what I would like to do as a goodbye celebration. I told him I wasn’t sure I even wanted to HAVE one, since I’m not exactly leaving for very happy reasons, and I really don’t want to be around a bunch of people crying or looking at me with pity for a couple hours, or talking about literally anything else. Not my idea of a good time. I kind of just… want to sneak out the back. Coworkers that I had personal attachments to had their chance last year to say goodbye at my wake. He said that was fine, but I should know there were lots of people who wanted a chance to say goodbye after almost ten years of working with me, and if I did not want to a going away thing, then that was my choice, but I needed to let him know so that he could inform me coworkers in Arizona that if they want to say goodbye they would have to make their own arrangements.

I flat out told him that was emotional blackmail. But I conceded that a going away thing wasn’t about me at all and I would think about it. He told me to pick a time and a place and let him know when I’d made arrangements.

…

…

…The FUCK I am going to plan my own going away party.

It’s already shitty that for almost the last 10 years, I’ve been performing the team’s emotional labor on my own (practically. James was really good at picking up some of it and made a point of not treating me like a fucking admin, while he was on our team). I am not going to plan, organize, and make reservations for a party – for MYSELF – that I don’t even want. I’ve been sending flowers for every, birth, wedding, and death in my team. I got nothing when my father died. …because I wasn’t there to send *myself* flowers.

It’s definitely time to go. If I weren’t leaving the team, the company, the workforce as a whole, I’d sure as shit be leaving this particular team anyway. Probably the company. We ceased giving a shit about each other a long time ago. That really sucks, because I miss the team we used to be. The team that hung out after work together for Beer Tuesdays and invited me even though I think beer is gross. The team that genuinely gave a shit about each other and had fun even when the work itself sucked so much ass. I miss that camaraderie.

The old team sure as fuck would not have told me to throw my own goddamned retirement party.

Taking my Leave

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holy fuck I can’t believe I just sent this. I have officially given notice to my job, and will cease working on August 31st.

Hello (Manager),

With regards to my unfortunate medical difficulties, we’ve previously discussed potential timelines for my final day at Intel, with loose plans being made. I promised you a final answer pending my clinic appointment on the 18th of June. Given my current rate of decline, and my remaining quality of life, I’d like to officially submit my final day with Intel to be September 16th, 2018. It will be my 10th anniversary at Intel, and seems a good time to go.

I have vacation days I’d like to use before then, so with your permission I’d have my last working day to be August 31st, with medical leave to begin Monday, September 17th (WW38.1). Our cube renovations will have begun by then, so my final in office date would be August 22nd (WW34.3), office visits to return equipment notwithstanding.

As you might imagine, this is not at all an easy decision. I will do my very best to document and transfer every scrap of knowledge I’ve gathered in my time here, and to hopefully train my replacement in the next ten weeks. It has truly been a pleasure to work at Intel, and I am genuinely sorry to end my career – for reasons above and beyond the obvious. Please accept my thanks for your guidance, and my eager assistance in making the transition as painless as possible for you and (team).

Most sincerely,

(me)

Unkind

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I was told twice yesterday that I had been unkind. Once about a caustic post I’d made that I didn’t realize had such a caustic tone, which I didn’t intend at all. Once about letting in-character anger spill over into an out-of character moment during a game.

It’s fucking with me more than I want to admit out loud.

I want to think I’m patient and a nice person. I want to BE a kind and soft person. With swearing as needed. I also want to think I can take constructive criticism. Both times, I tried to take the information in with a whole mind and open heart. I freely accepted valid points, admitted areas of ignorance – I genuinely did not realize my irritation with a sub-group of people spilled over into a perception of complete disdain and impatience for a related whole category of people. I vowed to be more aware, and work on it, and thanked them for bringing it to me. It’s a brave thing, to tell a friend they’re being a bit of a bitch.

But it’s fucking with me.

I don’t want to be unkind. It bothers me that someone would think I am. It bothers me that I speak without careful consideration, to have words and actions misconstrued.

So I lie awake until 3AM mulling over every interaction I had that day, wondering who else thought I was being a bitch, and what I can do to make amends. Usually these criticisms are self-inflicted, so coming from an external source, that knows me well, is especially jarring.

Before I moved away from Sacramento, several friends told me later, I became a bit of a bitch. My joking a little too caustic. I wondered if it were a subconscious self-defense mechanism, distancing myself from people I cared about in an effort to make it less shitty to leave.

I’m terrified of doing that same thing, knowing that I’m dying. From Diagnosis Day I have been fearful of being that embittered person in a wheelchair, lashing out at loved ones because I’m afraid to leave them. To be remembered as a total and complete bitch at the end of my days, in an effort to somehow distance myself from them so that the parting will be easier. Knowing it won’t help a goddamned bit. I do not wish to be a caustic person with nasty words where my love should be.

I’m glad my unkindness was called out. I’m glad I have time to work on it.

But until I am nothing but kind, it’s gonna fuck with me.

Saddiversary Part the Fourth

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Four years ago, I was told I was going to die.

Everyone dies. To know the mechanism of your demise, though, is a terrible and powerful thing. Oh, certainly, something else might kill me before ALS squeezes the breath from my body, but there is now a subtitle to my timeline, a definite path. The future is a language tainted with exceptions and qualifications.

I took the news and buried it deep in my chest that day, taking the bus home alone. I don’t remember what I was thinking. I remember tripping over a curb walking home from the bus stop. I remember wincing internally, absolutely certain that was going to be the catalyst for the meltdown to come. It wasn’t. I picked myself up, and thought to myself, “There will surely be much more of that.” I got home, looked around the house I had just bought, the house I would no longer get to keep, and wondered how the ever loving fuck I was going to break it to everyone.

My life is a timeline of things lost, now, a perverse sort of baby book in reverse. Vashti’s last unaided steps. Vashti’s last time putting on makeup one-handed. Vashti’s last time dressing up all by herself. Vashti’s last time feeding herself. Vashti’s last words. Vashti’s last breath, someday.

For now, I can still speak, and breathe, and feed myself mostly. I need help cutting food these days, a job my friends do graciously. It’s very sweet, even. Walking with a walker is still possible, but exhausting, and it feels more precarious than ever. I stay in the wheelchair when I can. I have the motorized one now, but no way to transport it (but I’m working on that!). My hands are just about useless; I type with two fingers that have very little strength left in them. I need two hands to lift a soda can to my lips. I bought a hand strap yesterday to put eating utensils in because I’m almost unable to grip them. Bladder control is almost completely a thing of the past.

But you know what? Fuck this disease. It doesn’t own me. I have to make allowances for its dumb ass, but it’s not who I am. I am still going to eat at all the fancy places. I am still hanging out with my friends. I am still working. In one week, I will have another birthday. I am still planning for a future, even if that future has heavy caveats.

Because fuck that shit.

Even four years later. Even knowing what it’s going to take from me. Even though it would seriously be so much easier to end it now, before it gets REALLY hard. Fuck that shit.

My saddiversary has come around once again, and it’s one more year I can give this disease the middle finger. It doesn’t fucking own me. Even after I’m a non-speaking, drooly, pees-my-pants useless lump of meat, it won’t own me. Even if I decide to take my own life before it gets that far, it doesn’t win.

One more year down. One more point for me.

Fuck yeah.

Brutal Honesty

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Spoiler alert: I don’t really like children. I’ve never wanted them, I don’t generally like being around them, they are messy and loud and completely irrational and they trigger my social anxiety like woah.

Disclaimer aside: I fucking love how brutally honest and open children are.

They can, as Fred Rogers said, spot a phony a mile away, and they will call it exactly as they see it. And a quality I’ve come to adore: they will ask questions. Adults will stare and make a point of NOT staring, and talk about anything BUT what they want to ask, and dodge the subject so thoroughly you’d think it was a game everyone is playing but you. Don’t Mention the Wheelchair, the worst party game ever.

But kids? Kids will come out and ask and feel no shame, and it’s refreshing as hell.

We went to dinner tonight, at a place with a LOOOOOOT of stairs. There’s a secret elevator entrance way in the back, but you have to have a host/hostess escort you because it’s seriously a maze and you have to go through a business building’s security desk. So tonight, when J wheeled me to the front counter to await seating, it was understandably baffling to a little girl how someone in a wheelchair was going to get up all the stairs she’d had to navigate to get in.

She couldn’t have been older than four. Adorable little thing in sparkly shoes and pigtails, and she turned to her mother when she saw me rolling up. Asking in that louder-than-normal-voice-whisper that kids have, she asked, “How’s she gonna get up here?”

To her credit, her mom was unembarrassed and handled the question honestly. “She’s not.”

“There’s a back way,” I told her.

The girl asked her mom, “Why’s she in the chair?”

“I don’t know,” her mom answered. To my delight, she did NOT try to hush the child up or make a big deal about it. When parents try to silence their kids’ questions, it feels like I’m some sort of shameful thing that has to be swept under the carpet. And hey guess what, when you skirt the issue? You pique the kid’s interest. Oh I’m NOT supposed to talk about this? GUESS WHAT WILL BE OUR TOPIC OF CHOICE TONIGHT. I *can’t* say those words? Well then BUTTS BUTTS BUTTS FART DOODY oh hi Grandma! Today I learned FARTS!

The child then, sensibly, turned to me. “Why are you in that chair?”

“My legs don’t work,” I told her honestly.

“How come your legs don’t work?”

“I have a disease. It makes them very weak. I’m not very strong anymore.”

“Oh.” She considered this new information, and then very logically continued, “well *I* am.”

“I can see that! You look very, very strong.”

And she flexed her little arms for me, beyond proud.

And that was the end of that. We shifted the topic to her shoes, which were very sparkly and lit up when she stomped, and she danced her own little disco until our table was ready and I was wheeled away. Hopefully, she will retain that honesty and people in wheelchairs will remain something normal, to have frank discussions about, and hopefully her parents continue to raise her well and when the answer is “I don’t want to tell you why I’m in this chair” or “It’s private why I only have one eye”, both parties deal with it with grace.

I see it as a continuation of all the conversations I’ve had with children, “Why is there earrings in your nose” or “how come you got purple hair” or “why did you draw all over your skin forever”. I enjoy those conversations because of their complete lack of judgement, their total curiosity. Not, “ewww you are weird and that’s bad” just “why are you different?” It’s an honest, open conversation and the world needs more of that.

So that’s the story of a completely charming child I spoke to last Sunday.

Cyborg Status: Confirmed

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So uhhh I have my port installed. It was …an adventure. Lemme tell you all about it!

When last we left our intrepid heroine, she had a really nasty reaction to the adhesives on her PICC line dressing. We moved to a different type of dressing that didn’t adhere for shit. The day I was done with the 14 day initial run, my awesome home infusion nurse came by to change the bandaging. She recommended we get the PICC pulled ASAP so I could get the dang adhesives off my skin.

It took a little convincing to get the nurse to refer me for a port; she was concerned that if I had a reaction to the adhesive as it was, having a port would be just as bad. I was concerned about not having tubes sticking out of me at all times; at least the port would give me a 2 week break every month. We eventually secured the referral, and my surgery was scheduled for 12:30 on December 27th, with a separate appointment that morning at 8:30 to get the PICC removed. When I told my home infusion nurse, she arranged to come by that evening (after her company holiday party, even!) to pull the PICC so we could get the wrappings off me and let my skin recover a bit. We love Deena, she’s rad. It was surreal to see her pull the line…it kind just kept coming out, like a magician’s scarf of surgery and horror. It was MUCH longer than I’d thought. And it was friggin’ DELIGHTFUL to have all that out/off. And the shower I was finally able to take was goddamned MAGICAL.

I received a call from St. Vincent’s hospital the next day – the surgeon I’d been scheduled with wasn’t actually going to work that week, could I go to Providence Portland instead? At 9:30am? Sure, no problem. The next day, they called again – sorry, could we make it same time, but back at St. Vincent’s after all? No problem. J worked that day, so I asked my sister-in-law-of awesomeness Jeanette to be my ride.

And then I made a terrible mistake.

OK so I’m a smart person, and with intelligence comes curiosity, and I wanted to know exactly what I was in for with this port. I watched a video of a woman demonstrrating how to access a port; no big deal, kind of persnickety with regards to keeping everything absolutely sterile, but whatevs. And thennnnnnnnnnn I watched a video of a port install surgery. OK, I am not really squicked out by surgery, and I found the whole thing fascinating until the phrase “BLUNT DISSECTION” came up, and the surgeon LITERALLY TORE A HOLE IN THE PERSON BY JAMMING HIS PINKY IN THE INCISION AND WIGGLING IT AROUND. HOLY FUCKBALLS. My brain went NOPE, FUCK THAT, FUCK THIS, AND FUCK YOU FOR SCHEDULING THIS MOTHEFUCKING MEDIEVAL-ASS SHIT. Intellectually I knew it was fine – MORE than fine, because I was gonna be hopped up on Versed and remember NONE of it and get some good drugs afterwards – but the actual crux of the mistake had been watching this video righe before bedtime, so my brain just did donuts in the parking lot for awhile.

The morning of the surgery, I got a call from the hospital – would I mind coming in early? It was 8:30 and I was scheduled to check-in at 9:30, so I was a bit confused, but I told them I’d be there as soon as I could. We parked too far away and I was a sweaty mess when we arrived at check-in, where I was told…I was scheduled at the OTHER hospital, still. I explained the conversations, they luckily sorted it out. I went upstairs, put the goofy little gown on, and waited. The nurses came in, partly to take vitals and start an IV and make sure I wasn’t pregnant, and partly to play peek-a-boo with my adorable niece. The doctor came in to introduce himself and ask if I had questions. he was delighted that I referred to the Huber needle I’d be using to access the port as “the crooked needle”. I was delighted by his use of the phrase “twilight sleep” to describe the conscious sedation I’d be under. They’d give me benadryl in my line along with the sedatives and a dose of antibiotic, he said, hopefully I’d just sleep through the whole thing.

I remember them wheeling me into the surgery, and seeing the GINORMOUS fucking monitor he’d be using to make sure he was placing the port properly, with x-ray. It was weird to see my name there. The several nurses had their A-Game banter going, and we were having a great time explaining names and tattoos to each other. One nurse thought I had an accent, and asked how long I’d been a Yankee. “My whole life?” A male nurse/technician/whathaveya scrubbed me down with a blue solution, making me the world’s least convincing Smurf. I was freaking cold, despite the warmed blanket they’d put over me. The IV nurse told me he was putting the antibiotics in my line now, and I felt the cold sting. he told me he was starting the sedative now, and then I…

I do not remember a thing after that.

I woke up with a very large image of my x-ray on the monitor, showing the line running into my artery. I was shivering. They wheeled me back to the recovery room, and I slept a bit. Jeanette had taken my niece Jewel to get some lunch or something. They brought me a turkey sandwich, which I devoured. They had put the dressing on a bit shitty; I couldn’t raise my head all the way, or turn my head much because of the way my skin was taped up. It itched a bit. I was given discharge instructions and no pain killers (“Just take some Tylenol”). My sister came back, I got dressed, she took me home, and I slept some more.

The next morning I was aware something was up. I was naughty and pulled the dressing off a bit to allow myself the ability to raise my fucking head, and where the dressing had been tugging was now an angry red wound. I was very itchy. All over my chest. Angry red hives, all over my chest, up my neck, and across my chin. Tylenol, it turned out, did not fucking suffice, so I took some of the hydrocodone I had leftover from breaking my ankle that the doctor hadn’t wanted to give me either because ibuprofin should be fine. YOU JUST TORE A HOLE IN ME BIG ENOUGH FOR A 1 INCH SQUARE MEDICAL DEVICE AND ALSO CUT MY NECK TO SHOVE WIRES INTO MY VEINS – NEWSFUCKINGFLASH TYLENOL AND IBUPROFIN ARE NOT SUFFICIENT FOR THIS. BLUNT. DISSECTION. BITCHES. I slept some more. I woke up to even angrier hives, annnnnnnnnd my eye was a swollen bag of fluid.

IS THIS NOT LOVELY?

So uh…yeah. I was having an allergic reaction to something. It couldn’t be the dressing itself, since the hives were everywhere. It got worse and itchier over the night. I had a different IV home nurse visit that day, to change the bandage since they’d thoughtfully left a needle in the port for me to start the infusions, but I’d bled a bit so there was gauze under the dressing which needed to go. She was very concerned about the reaction, namely that it might be a reaction to the port itself. My delightful friend Lizzie was coming over that day with delicious food for me, and she kindly picked up some Benadryl on her way in. Luckily I had a doctor’s appointment already scheduled for the next day, for an unrelated issue and holy FUCK will I rant about that in a bit. I took Benadryl, ate delicious home made food, and slept a lot.

My PCP is a cool guy, and didn’t mind dealing with the reaction as well as the initial problem we were scheduled to deal with. He suggested two more antihistamines in addition to the Benadryl, and to contact the hospital if it didn’t clear up by Tuesday (Monday was New Year’s). Luckily it did, mostly. I think the problem was the smurf shit they scrubbed me down with, since the hives pretty much appeared everywhere they used it. I have no explanation for my eye becoming a blister, tho.

We’ve now completed the second round of infusions, the port works beautifully, and we pulled the needle out last night. I am once again dressing-free for two weeks. The scar is already nearly healed up, and the itching has almost entirely subsided now that I’ve got no more adhesives on me. I can feel the port under my skin, and it’s weird.

Now I am become cyborg. beep bloop bleep.

Accommodation

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Fun fact: I AM A GIANT NERD.

You already knew this. Probably. Almost definitely. If not, welcome to me; I’m a giant nerd.

Most every Wednesday, I play a table top role-playing game with a group of guys that have become good friends. We are virtual murder hobos, adventuring and killing monsters and arguing amongst ourselves about which monsters need killing, and it’s a lot of fun. I absolutely adore the group. The only hitch at all is that my stupid disease gets in the way a lot – I’ve had to miss a lot of games because of appointments, or a couple of times I’ve fallen and hurt myself, or sometimes my mana is just too damn low to deal, or once or twice Sadbrain said nope. Luckily, they’re very cool about me missing games; they understand. We had a talk once to just make sure that it wasn’t that I was not enjoying the game but was too polite to say so, so I was making excuses; once they were assured that I absolutely enjoyed the game but my disease is stupid, we were all good.

Part of that hitch is getting to the place we game. It used to be at the storyteller’s house, which had two steps and no rail. It was…not fun getting inside. Luckily before that became an impossibility, we switched to another player’s house, which has just one step. Much easier. Still an effort, and some days a Herculean one, but better. This last Wednesday, I had low energy, and I sarcastically complained to J as we were heading over, “Tim needs to get a fucking ramp.” If J didn’t drive a little car, I’d probably have bought one of those portable ramps to just carry around with us for these occasions. It would definitely make things easier. I’d never actually expect someone to modify their home for me, obviously. But some days it probably would be the final straw in deciding if I had the energy to go to to game or not. Stupid disease.

We pulled up to the house, and everyone was standing around outside, which was…odd, because it was cold as hell. We usually start game at 5:30, but we were told tonight was a late start, so maybe everyone had just gotten there. I got out of the car, and they all kind off…turned to face me. Matt, the storyteller, told me that they all understood that I had hella circumstances and that it made it really hard for me to get to game sometimes. For a moment, I thought, “OH shit, they’re kicking me out of game because I’m unreliable. Well, I can’t really blame them.” He continued to say that they really appreciated the effort I made to show up, and that they all wanted to make sure that I’m able to continue doing it for as long as I can, so…they all parted to show me something behind them.

Guys.

GUYS.

THEY BOUGHT ME A FUCKING RAMP.

To get in to the house. A ramp. For me. And they even put stickers all over it.

For me.

One of the worst things about acquiring a disability is feeling like you’re a burden. Your friends and family have to make plans around your diminished abilities, suddenly old traditions have to be abandoned. Even though everyone insists – INSISTS – that you’re fine, they want you there, they’re happy to make the changes, you can’t help feel guilty that they’re missing out on cool things because of you. A lifetime of Sadbrain convincing me that I’m not worth the effort in the first place does not help the matter, and I’ve worked my whole life to make that voice be silent, with very mixed results. In the meantime, events are missed, changes are made, things are rearranged, and my friends and family do their best to accommodate me and tell me it’s alright.

Funny word, accommodate.

It can mean providing sufficient living space, or making a compromise, or adjusting to something new. It means somehow going out of your way for someone. In my world it’s usually got a slightly cynical sister word attached, “reasonable”, when dealing with work and places of business. Reasonable accommodation. Legally doing the absolute bare minimum in order to convince ADA enforcement laws that you’ve done …something. (I’m a little bitter, yes)

When it’s your friends, though, and you know they sure as shit didn’t HAVE to do anything, that they made an effort because they legitimately want you around, and here is absolute proof? Yeah I totally teared up. It was an amazing thing. A selfless thing. An important thing.

It makes dealing with it easier. It makes being alive easier.

It makes it WORTH it.

Stuff Keeps Happening

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So! Today is the last day of the first run of Radicava. I’m confident at this point that any side effects are tolerable, and I want to continue. The only potential things I’ve noticed is that there MAY be an uptick in the frequency/severity of my headaches, but it’s nothing I can’t tolerate, and there’s been a few times when there’s been a weird panick-attacky feeling, where my heart is beating in my throat, but that always goes away. Labs will be drawn to make sure I’m not experiencing anything serious, of course, but my own internal feeling is that everything’s GO for continuing.

Whether this is even doing any good, I won’t know until March, the next Clinic Day. But it’s not hurting anything, so we’ll keep it going. This also means I’ve asked to go ahead with the port install. It will be a vast relief to no longer have these tubes coming out of my arm that need babying, not least of which is because the adhesives that protect the PICC line itch like a MOFO.

Since my fall last Tuesday, I’ve noticed my hip hurting a bit, one spot particularly. I kept expecting a bruise to form, but it never did. Two nights ago, I was pushing on the spot, to figure out exactly where it hurt, and my fingers found a hard lump that rolled around a bit under my skin at the joint. And I remembered wayyyyyyyyyyy back at the beginning of my Godzilla Disease diagnosis attempts, how we initially thought the problem was in my hip, and then I got an MRI, and the MRI showed a small tumor thing in my hip meat. It was deemed medically uninteresting, though, and ruled out as the cause of my woes. I was told that it had probably been there, like, forever, and wouldn’t be a problem, but maybe keep an eye one things and recheck it in a few years.

I guess, yeah, it’s been a few years, so it’s time to get the dang thing rechecked. So THAT will be fun, as I can’t really get up into MRI machines these days. I’ll make an appointment soon. One more damn thing. I’m sure it’s fine, but dang, man.

I’ll let you all know when I get the port installed. 😀

Fall-ow up Post

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Tuesday was not a good day.

It was the urology follow up, and the day began with a clear reminder of why the appointment was needed, followed by massively uncomfortable prep, and then the Lyft ride to the hospital. I was half an hour early, thankyewverymuch. Once inside, I don’t even know exactly what happened, only that my walker was moving faster than I was, and I didn’t have the strength to pull it back under me, and suddenly I was kneeling on the ground. Two older men noticed my plight, and asked if I needed help.

“Yes please?” The question mark was because I had serious doubts these two were going to be able to get me off the ground. Doubts well founded. They were not. A third, younger man assisted and we finally got me seated on the walker. They all left with my profuse, if a little breathless thanks. I wasn’t hurt at all. After catching my breath, I stood a little shakily (yay adrenaline!) and made my way to the urologist, who has a very heavy office door. A gentleman inside noticed I was having a hard time pushing the door open, and opened it for me.

…Only I was leaning on the door knob at the time. With my support pulled away from me, I lost my balance and landed on my back in the hallway.

Please ask if someone needs help before ‘accommodating’ them? This is the first time it’s actually caused a fall, but I’ve NEARLY been pushed or pulled off balance many times by someone trying to help. Please offer to help, but wait until I am aware of you and ready before doing the thing. Thanks.

I was surrounded by noisy, concerned people, including the really bitchy admin from last time who was actually quite sweet this time. One of the people who helped me up this time was one of the same older gentlemen from before. “If I’d known you were coming here, I’d have waited with you.” We got me seated again, and I was left to rest in the lobby, blissfully left to my own devices once everyone was sure I was OK.

The appointment itself was…uncomfortable. All sorts of probes and wires were inserted or otherwise attached, then my bladder was filled and i was instructed to bear down. Nothing leaked, which in retrospect was hardly a surprise because it’s only when I get UP that problems happen, but I didn’t have the presence of mind to point that out. The wires were disconnected, the doctor came in and looked at my results, and…instructed me to pee more often.

That’s it.

That’s her whole plan. Just get up every three hours and pee, maybe you won’t leak. Oh and keep doing those Kegels with muscles you no longer possess. She clearly does not speak ALS.

I left angry and frustrated, and took a Lyft home, only to find Amazon had delivered a package while I was gone. Right in front of my door. My case of Monster. My very heavy 24 count case of 20 ounce cans, right in front of the door. Annnnnnnnnnnd in trying to move it enough to get inside the door, I uh..yeah I fell again. Badly this time. Pain shot through my previously damaged knee and my freakin’ ankle that was broken. My mom, alerted by the noise of the fall (but not the swearing, oddly enough, she didn’t hear me yell), came out to try to help, but there wasn’t anything she could really do. Once I caught my breath and got my legs out from under me, I was able to shove the Amazon box out of my way and crawl inside. It was good to have my mom there this time; even though she could in no way help me up, she was able to get the walker out of my way and put our stepstool by my bed so I could use it to haul myself up.

Thank God I had taken an ativan that morning before leaving, or I’d have been a blubbery mess. As it was, I took a well deserved nap and was pretty sadbrained the rest of the day. Yesterday I was pretty dang sore all over and worked from home. Landing on your ass three times in 2 hours takes it out of a girl.

BUT! Yesterday was also the completion of my first week of Radicava! I think it’s going well. It maaaaaaayyyyyyyy be exacerbating my headaches though; I’m keeping an eye on it. It’s been an eventful and stressy week, so hopefully the coming one is kinder and a more useful baseline. I won’t know really if the meds are helping anything until March, the next Clinic day. I’m committed to keeping it going at least until then.

So now you’re up to date, and I’m gonna go play on the internet. <3

A Rad Update

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Step 1. Gather the required materials.

One box of Radicava, which contains two 100ml bags. Two saline flush syringes. One package of IV tubing. At least two alcohol prep pads. One IV pole.

If we were taking labs, or redressing the PICC line, there would be so many more components. This, though, is the minimum. There will come a time when this is routine and second nature, but for now, everything is still double and triple checked. We lay things out like we’re preparing for surgery. It’s not far from the truth.

Step 2. Wash your hands.

There’s hand sanitizer, which also gets liberal use, but there’s no substitute for scrubbing your hands with soap and hot water. I find it almost impossible to wash my hands well these days, and drying is a nightmare, so I typically opt for the sanitizer only. If your hands work, though, go wash them.

Step 3. Open all the packaging.

The box of Radicava contains two trays of 100 ml bags of medicine, each with a silica bag and a little pink oxygen indicator. We peel back the lids on the bags, which each have a plastic seal over the input valve. We leave those intact until the last minute. We unwrap the two saline syringes, but leave the caps on. We open the first alcohol prep pad and set it aside. We unwrap the IV line and hang it over the IV pole. OK. I think we’re ready.

I’m appalled every day at how much waste this generates.

Step 4. Prep the line and bag.

We close the IV line, either through the clamp or dial, depending on the tubing style. Removing the bag’s seal and uncapping the IV line’s spike, we push the spike into the gray seal on the bag as straight as possible so as not to split the bag. It takes a surprising amount of force to do this. Because the line is clamped, nothing happens yet. We squeeze the tube’s chamber to fill it about half full of medicine. Carefully, slowly, we unclamp the line and allow the medicine to flow through the tube, stopping it just before it spills out of the end. We clamp it off and set it aside, dangling harmlessly from the IV pole for now.

Step 5. Sanitize the input valve on the PICC line.

The alcohol pad is scrubbed over the PICC’s blue input valve for 15 seconds. It doesn’t have a cap, so it’s out in the open all the time, well, tucked up under the sock against my skin, and must be cleaned carefully. We let it air dry.

Step 6. Saline Flush to clear the line.

Uncapping the saline syringe, the plunger is pushed juuuuuuust a little bit to push the air out. Or, you know, accidentally create a beautiful arc of saline in the air if you push too hard. The syringe is then coupled to the blue port on my PICC, twisted in place to secure it, and the saline injected a push at a time, to the rhythm of a heartbeat. Bublump. Bublump. On the second push, I feel the cold liquid in my vein, and a moment later, I smell and taste the saline in the back of my throat. It’s a hospital smell. The rest of the syringe is injected, decoupled, and disposed of in the biohazard bin.

Step 7. Insert tubing into PICC and begin infusion.

The IV tube is pushed into the blue PICC port, the little plastic collar screwed tight to secure the connection. The tube is unclamped or undialed, and the Radicava begins to flow into my vein. It feels like nothing. It’s not cold, like the saline, it has no taste, no burning like some antiseptics and anisthetics. There is no sensation at all, and the only reason I know I’m getting medicine is to watch the IV chamber steadily drip drip drip drip…

Step 8. Swap bags when the first one is empty.

The tricky part to this is allowing all of the medicine to drain out of the bag without letting the chamber empty, which will allow air down the line. Air in the line is bad. I have remedy available, if that should happen; it’s easy enough to use a saline syringe at the bottom of the line to force liquid back up into the chamber and clear air out. But it’s best to not let that happen. We swap the bags and sit back to wait some more. This is supposed to be a 1 hour infusion, but it’s taking closer to 2. A lot of the reason for this is an extension of the PICC line we added so that I can reach the ports myself, which bottlenecks the flow AND adds extra distance for the medicine to have to travel.

I can do a lot of this myself, except the coupling of the IV line to the PICC. Both ends are very floppy and you can’t touch the ends without having to start over and resterilize. Doing all these things, though, cause my hands to cramp up a lot and then be completely useless for the rest of the day, so I happily leave it to others when I can. J’s been doing it the last couple days, which is marvelously helpful.

Step 9. Bleed the line carefully.

Once the bag is empty, we play a game of chicken with the medicine, allowing it to drain down the line until the air is allllllllllllllmost to the PICC line. We don’t want air in my line, obviously, but we also want every last drop of the insanely expensive medicine in my veins and not in the trash. Once the line’s drained as far as we dare, the line is clamped, decoupled, and the entire bag and IV line is discarded. More trash.

Step 10. Saline flush.

Hands are washed and sanitized again. After another scrub of the port, the second saline syringe is rid of air pockets, attached to the blue port, and screwed in. More heartbeat push, more cold, more hospital smell and taste. Yummy. The syringe goes in the biohazard bin, even though it never really touched my fluids. Quite the opposite.

Step 11. Redress and cleanup.

We’re done! Everything is thrown out, the IV pole is collapsed and stowed, and the PICC line is coiled up and tucked under the itchy fishnet sock around my arm keeping everything covered.

*****************************************

Today will be day 5. Fortunately, it is not time sensitive in application like an antibiotic might be, so as long as I do it sometime on that day, it’s fine, it doesn’t need strict scheduling. Last night’s dose began around 8; tonight will be closer to 10 or 11, my first ever dose was 9 AM. For the second round, I have to do 10 infusions over 14 days, and I can also pick and choose dates and times. If I want to do Monday through Friday and skip weekends, I can. If I want to do all 10 days up front and get it done, I can. It’s up to me.

The main problem I’ve had so far has been dealing with the PICC, in that it’s inconvenient as hell (I miss showering – I can only shower if I take these huge complicated precautions to wrap it all up watertight and I just can’t pull it off on my own) and itchy AF. The bandage tape is itchy, the sock is itchy, the lines are tickly and like to snake their way out of the sock and say hi to the world from under my sleeve. It’s convenient as hell for not having to have an IV poked in every single time, but everything else about it sucks. I’ve already decided to get the port-a-cath installed once I’m done with this round.

I’m tolerating the drug just fine. I *think* it’s exacerbating my headaches, but nothing unbearable, and it may be causing night sweats, but I have to research that to find out if it’s even a thing that might happen. Otherwise I’m doing good. We’ll find out in March if it’s affected my decline in the least bit.

So that’s everything so far about radicava, darlings. It’s going well. I’m still terribly excited about all of this.

The Good Kind of Progress

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I met yesterday with my PT specialists and a sales rep to pick out my new wheels. I’m getting one of these!

new wheels!

I opted for the midwheel drive, it’s got a smaller footprint and pivots around corners rather than steering like a car, so it’s easier to drive. I’m still totally gonna run into things. Count on it. I got the USB charging port (instant popularity!) and a cup holder and..yah! I also opted for the seat elevation feature that will let me look people in the face when sitting in the chair, even though insurance is proooooobably not going to cover it. But I think being able to see over tall counters is important.

Tomorrow I start Radicava infusions. The nurse is coming over around 11 to teach me how to do it, and then Friday s/he’ll come back to watch me do it and make sure I learned properly. They’ll also change out the dressing tomorrow, for which I am grateful. It’s itchy.

This has been your baby update.

Time to Take the TMI Train to Tinkle Town!

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Ok seriously, this is a TMI warning. There be candid, unglam talk about pee and even some butt stuff. So uh. Yeah. Proceed with discretion.

Soooooooooo the main reason I have not been posting is two-fold, with the reason being DEEEPRESSSSHUNS, stemming from 1) my stepfather dying and now my mom lives with me, and 2) a new symptom which is KICKING MY ASS in all kinds of fun physical, mental, and emotional ways. My surprise roommate situation – that will get its own blog, don’t you fret. Things are actually settled and pretty ok on that front now; that’s the GOOD part about avoiding blogging during a crisis – you get to walk in at the end of the story!

Ok so I just checked the archives for the first time I wrote about this thing and it was March of 2016. So I need to stop calling it a new symptom. Duly noted, self. Well. It was kinda a one-off thing, it happened a couple of times? But the last few months it’s been a serious deal and I am seriously not dealing well.

As you may have surmised, it’s about this:

And then I was just…peeing.

“Urge incontinence”. Only…there’s no “urge” part anymore. It’s closer to say that it will occur to me that I haven’t peed for awhile and should prolly do that, or I kind of have to go, and then before I can get to the toilet, I am just peeing. Everywhere. I’ve had to leave work early because I had to change my clothes, I’ve had to change clothes I literally just put on. And it’s not like I’m peeing in my chair, oh no, it fucking WAITS until I am alllllllllmost to the toilet and then just lets itself out all over me and the bathmat in front of my toilet before I have the chance to undress, much less sit the fuck down. Unless I physically cross my legs to contain it – and often, even then – there’s a mess.

I’m 42 and I wear incontinence pads every day now. As I posted previously, a lot of the articles about ALS say that usually bladder and bowel function aren’t affected. I took a lot more comfort in that than I realized. Like..sure I might be choking on my own spit someday, but at least I won’t be sitting in a puddle of my own urine. But no, I’ve not even begun to have speech or swallowing problems yet, but I have left trails of pee from my room to the toilet – while WEARING a fucking pad. They only hold so much, and I’ve peed through even the overnight Poise pads more times than I can count.

Fun fact – Poise pads are rated by flow, just like menstrual pads, onle they don’t use words like “light, medium, and heavy”. They use words like “drips, dribbles, spurts, and gushes”.

Additional fun fact: menstrual pads and incontinence pads are NOT THE SAME THING. Ask me how I found out! At work!

So, last clinic, I brought this up, and we started the road to Figure Things Out. It has NOT been a good road.

Like, at all.

We started the easy path, with a medication. That did nothing. We upped the dose. Nothing. I was referred to a urologist. He had me pee in a cup to make sure I didn’t have any weird infections – this is not easy any more. You kinda need functioning hands to maneuver this, and remember this point. It becomes VERY important later. He then did an ultrasound on my bladder to make sure I was emptying it completely when I peed. I do. He shrugged and gave me samples for a new med to try. I did. They did nothing. He gave me another months’ supply in samples, and said he was previously going to do a couple of tests that day, but given my whole situation, he instead referred me to his colleague, who could do an ENTIRE workup. He said they’d call to schedule that; it’s an hour and a half appointment that involved probes and a scope up my urethra, soooooo be prepared for that I guess.

A week later, I get a call to make the appointment, and they send me a pamphlet of what to expect, and a sheet of instructions on how to prepare. The word “enema” is involved. Two enemas, exactly. One the night before, and one the morning of. The informational pamphlet says they’ll be sticking a scope into my bladder, to take a look, they’ll also be doing a flow test which means I sit on a commode and pee to determine…something, I guess. How fast I pee? And then they’ll be filling my bladder with sterile saline and stick a probe in both ends, and then have me do some tests like bearing down, and standing up. I guessed there would be puppy pads all over the room for that part. I was not looking forward to this, like, at ALL.

And so, the weekend before the appointment, I had to muster the courage to ask J to take me to the store so I could buy a freakin’ enema. He’s actually been amazing about listening to the really awful details of this whole bullshit Godzilla Disease, and took it in stride, and sympathized about the scope part cause he’d had that done. We bought what I needed, and then the night before the appointment, I set forth to do the thing.

OK. Here is where it is important to remember the part about “you kinda need functioning hands”. If you’re not familiar with an enema, it is essentially a flexible little bottle of saline with a thoughtfully, pre-lubricated plastic tip. You insert the thoughtfully pre-lubricated tip into your butt, squeeze the contents of the bottle in, and then wait for nature to do its thing. The bottle, for reference, is smaller than a standard soda bottle by a lot. It’s also full of water, which is heavy. Sooooooo don’t actually picture this, because gross, but…entertain a brief thought about what kind of difficulties a person with ALS may have in this situation. Especially when she is also overweight, and seated on a narrow, raised toilet seat with bars that prevent her from say, separating the knees as far as one might wish to get access to that business.

If your imagined, hypothetical scenario included dropping the bottle in the toilet more than once, and then ultimately only managing to squeeze maybe a third of it in? Congratulations. Now do that again in the morning.

The night before the appointment, after dealing with the ahem..effects..of the ordeal, I have a worrying thought. The clinic has more than one urology office location. There’s the one at the hospital in NW Portland, where I’ve been seeing this dude, but they ALSO have a location in NE Portland, where Dr. Goslin is. The urologist just mentioned a colleague. Same office? I scoured the paperwork I had, nothing had an address on it. It was Monday night at 10. I couldn’t call anyone. I checked the web portal for the clinic, and they had NOTHING about upcoming appointments anywhere. I could check every fucking thing else in my medical files with them, but nothing about an upcoming appointment. They hadn’t called with an appointment reminder.

I took my chances and went to the same clinic. And…yeah, you already guessed it was the wrong fucking hospital. Amazingly, they had another opening at the right hospital the very next week, so I made that appointment. After the month I’d been having, and the whole enema ordeal and the humiliation of that and the frustration of my hands just not fucking cooperating enough to do this, and the nightmare scenarios of thinking I’d ever have to ask someone for help with that, and paying $30 on a Lyft to the hospital and knowing I was going to have to spend another $30 to go home….I went into the hospital bathroom and sobbed a lot. Then I went home and took a nap.

The next week, I had better ideas about how to do the prep work. It went better, but also involved having to do the thing twice, since I could still only get a half dose in. The morning of, I had a complete incontinence issue and peed alllllllllll the fuck over m,y bedroom carpet and the bathroom tile and the bath mat and the toilet seat and everyfuckingwhere. And then after I cleaned it all up, I had to deal with the second dose of enema funtimes, and then got dressed and called my Lyft. It is 20 miles from my apartment to the hospital, mayyyyyybe 45 minutes with traffic. I left around 7:30 for an 8:30 appointment. There was a 25 minute traffic delay. I got to the hospital at 9AM. When I realized I was going to be 10 minutes late, to a 90 minute appointment, I thought about calling them to apologize but didn’t think I’d missed the appointment It was an hour and a half, and they always keep you waiting 10 minutes in the lobby anyway. When Waze bumped the arrival estimate to 8:45, I contemplated having him just turn around and take me back home. When the arrival time hit 9AM, I just kinda…turned off and knew I was showing up just to reschedule with the receptionist. I got to the office, explained what happened to the Eastern European lady, told her I realized at this point I was probably going to have to just reschedule the whole thing, and she looked at me like I was stupid.

“You have to PLAN for these things,” she told me like I was a child. “You can’t think traffic isn’t going to happen.”

“I planned a 15 minute buffer,” I told her. “It took 45 minutes longer than it should have.”

“You have to think about traffic,” she shook her head at me, exasperated. I guess she realized I was very, very close to tears, because then she said “I’ll see if they can get you in. But I don’t think so.”

Cue about 8 minutes of me leaning against the counter while she talked to the other office folk about how I seriously expected to be able to show up 30 minutes late and then a muffled conversation around the corner with the nurses, and I was JUST about to tap on the glass and remind her snarky bitch ass that I had ACTUALLY apologized and asked to fucking reschedule in the first place when I GOT THERE when she came back and said they could do PART of the appointment today, and maybe if the next person doesn’t show up for their appointment, we could get it all done.

We did not, in fact, get it all done.

Wanna guess which part we did not get done? The part that required the enema prep? OH WELL DONE YOU GET A PRIZE. We DID get the part done where they put numbing gel in my ladybits and then jammed a camera scope in there. I got to see the inside of my apparently healthy bladder, and even watched my kidney spit a blurble of pee into it. I did the pee-over-a-cup-on-a-scale test, too, and then sat in the room alone with no underwear on while we waited to see if the next guy showed up. When he did, I was ushered out to the lobby to reschedule without being given a chance to put said underwear back on, and then stood at the counter with a breeze up my dress while I waited for Ms. Thing to get me another appointment. At least she was equal opportunity bitch, because another dude came out of the office and needed some followup something, and she barked at him to just sit down and she would get to him in a minute. And then told me that she just couldn’t STAND when people just HOVERED like that. And then she tried to be sweet and called me darling when she found an appointment a month away “so much quicker than I thought for you” and made a point of scheduling me for the LATER time, and wrote my appointment time as 15 minutes earlier for arrival on the reminder card. Like…yeah, I GOT it, bitch. I WAS LATE. And then I went outside and got a Lyft home that cost $40, like the ride in, and I guess the worst part is how everyone assumes I have a magical support network for free that can help with enemas and free rides where I need to go so it’s just an inconvenience to THEIR asses when I get caught in traffic or they send me to the wrong fucking hospital in the first place.

Oh, and this was on Halloween.

So now, I get to wait a month, do enemas again, and in the meantime just continue peeing myself all the time because it’s not at all disruptive to my life? And then pay another $80 in Lyft fare to have probes shoved in me? And in the meantime, the urologist’s advice was to do some Kegels. IF I COULD CLENCH THOSE MUSCLES IN THE FIRST PLACE, LADY, WE WOULD NOT BE TALKING TODAY. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE FUCK ALS EVEN IS. It’s when you try to use a muscle and CAN’T. BECAUSE THE MUSCLE IS GONE.

So yep. I’ve not been living my best life lately. This has been really hard. And humiliating. And a big fucking mess. In every sense of the word.

Next time I’ll tell you about clinic day and all that. This was a difficult post to write. I’m going to go look at some cat pictures or watch some jellyfish for awhile.

Fall down, go boom.

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I got hit by a car on Saturday.

If I did not have this stupid disease, it would not have happened. I was alerted to the car in time, and had I been able-bodied, I would have been able to blithely move out of the way, probably with an angry yell and discourteous finger gesture at the driver. But instead, I heard J’s dad yell, and looked over to see backup lights on a car I hadn’t realized was even parked there, and tried very hard to get out of the way and failed.

If I had to be hit by a car, this was totally the way to go. It was the gentlest of impacts ever, the equivalent of someone slowly leaning on me until the walker got pushed over and me with it. I scraped up my knee and my elbow, and got a little road rash on my hand. That’s all. The worst part was spilling my breakfast leftovers. J’s dad banged on the trunk of the car to alert her to our presence, which brought her to a stop; if he hadn’t, I’d likely have been hurt worse. The car and my walker traded a little paint, instead of her going over me completely.

The next twenty minutes were a blur of being asked a thousand times if I was hurt, was I sure, did I need an ambulance, was I okay, are you sure. I told them I was basically just pushed over, it was the tiniest of falls, and J’s mom helpfully reminded me it was “just a fall” that broke my ankle. Thanks, mom. The woman who hit me was beside herself with mortification, and made sure she gave me her information just in case the next day I wasn’t feeling okay. She was using someone else’s car, she said, and was used to a backup camera, though I was standing behind and to the right of her parked car; had she used the side mirrors she would have seen me. I can’t fault her too much, though, it is a TERRIBLE parking lot that requires you to drive on the sidewalk to back out. It is exactly the length of a car. So, of course in my brain, it’s perfectly safe to have been standing where I was, because I was on the sidewalk – but to her, I was standing in the driveway in a bit of a blind spot.

I told everyone my main concern was how the hell I was going to get off the ground – there was J, his elderly parents, his elderly aunt, and his cousin who was small. The driver was also a shorter woman, and the bystander who came over to help was similarly small.
Turns out the driver was a paramedic, and we had NO trouble getting me off the ground. I told her it was okay, I was fine, and at least she had a story to tell.

“Are you KIDDING??” she asked incredulously. “I’m not telling ANYONE about this.”

And she probably won’t. She had someone in the car with her, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she swore her to secrecy. A lot of my friends (I love you vindictive, protective people) expressed wishes that she feels guilty FOREVER, and my little brother even offered to “Tonya Harding her”. The guilt she feels is more than adequate punishment I think; as my little brother also said, “backing into a cripple is the same as running over a normal person at a hundred miles an hour.”

Thanks, Justin. <3 The next day, the soreness kicked in; my shoulder's a bit stiff and my lower back apparently got a bit twisted. But still - I get to tell people I was HIT BY A CAR!! and all I came away with was a little soreness and a knee scrape the size of a quarter. This morning I saw the bruise on my hand come through - I dunno if you can see it:

The two slices are from something else. Though, I had a severe shock this morning, looking at my palm, and realizing how much of my hand has completely atrophied. There’s supposed to be a big fat pad at the base of your thumb, and mine is actually concave. I have to use my other hand to hold my fingers open to even look at it. It’s a very strong..I don’t want to say body dysmorphia, since my deformities are real and not perceived..maybe body horror? Unrealism. It’s strange to look at the changes my own body is going through and feel like I’m wearing someone else’s skin sometimes, because that’s NOT how I remember my hands. And yet, they’re mine. Definitely attached to me, only showing physical deterioration of the strength I perceive slipping away.

But anyway. I got hit by a car. I was then reprimanded by my loved ones for hurting myself AGAIN, and specifically admonished to “stop having so many woes and calamities”.

I’m surely trying. I think I’ve filled my quota for the year. My drama card is full of punches, so I think I get a free latte or something. BUT. I’m okay. I got hit by a car and sorta walked away. I’m very lucky.

Unsafety Net

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I have Clinic next Monday, and one of the things I need to talk to them about is maybe upping my depression/anxiety meds. I’ve been having severe bouts with SadBrain lately, and while I have hella circumstances that warrant being sad, I don’t like being crippled by ennui just because a cat video looked at me wrong.

Last night, even though I KNEW BETTER, I watched a documentary about coral on Netflix. I knew it was going to deal with the devastation on our reefs caused by climate change, but I love coral and wanted some beautiful imagery. I wasn’t disappointed on either front, and when one of the guys involved with the project started crying over the devastation of his beloved corals, so did I. And I cried for a long time.

And I thought, not for the first time and CERTAINLY not the last, that I’m a little bit glad I’ll be dead sooner than later. I don’t want to live on this planet anymore. And I honestly couldn’t tell if that was SadBrain or Cynicism talking.

Either way, both them bitches need to shut up.

Cry Me a River of Lava

tragerstreit1 Comment

I had a 3AM epiphany after watching one of many, many, many nature shows. I’ve been on a Carl Sagan and Brian Cox kick lately, having completely exhausted all things Sir Attenborough. My mind latched on to the idea and wrestled with it rather than letting me sleep: people are like volcanoes.

No wait, stick with me.

Our outer shell is a hard rocky thing, but internal emotions are a seething, writhing mass of potentially deadly stuff. Some people bottle that up and become a tall cold stately thing, very impressive to look at but not all that interesting. Some people let emotions seep out all over the place until they are thin, flat, and stretched out to a similar on interestingness. Most of us though, keep it bottled in until it can’t be bottled anymore, and there’s an explosion. Sometimes there are signs for months or even years before the event that an impending irruption is eminent; irritability, depression, reclusiveness the equivalents of smoke and the occasional ash plume. Sometimes the eruption is sudden and violent, and nothing around it is ever the same. And once the eruption is over, we may become a stark hellscape of stripped trees, chartered earth, and acrid air. Or, we may become an amazingly fertile landscape of lush vegetation, the ash of emotional eruption fertilizing our lives afterwards. We can either be scarred by the experience, or renewed by it. And we can, if we are lucky, even use that emotional lava to build something new.

I suppose I saw it coming for weeks, this latest eruption. I had a serious bout with Sadbrain, to the point last Wednesday while having dinner with J, he repeatedly asked me if I was okay, because I clearly wasn’t. I didn’t know what to tell him. Of course I wasn’t. I’m never going to be “okay”, not ever again, but I can be okay with what’s happening. Occasionally. Right now, in this moment. Naturally sometimes are going to be rougher than ours, of course they are, but Sadbrain is another beast entirely. It’s born of, but not entirely created by, current events of course, but there is an insidious undercurrent of malignant chemistry in the mix to make things even worse.

He and I had had a chat about suicidal ideation lately, I don’t even remember how it came about. I told him I’ve never been properly suicidal, never really wanted to commit suicide, to which he immediately scoffed. I corrected myself that of course I’ve thought about suicide, everyone does, even if only in a sort of philosophical way. But I’ve never actually thought about killing myself. “I don’t want to kill myself,” I told him, “but …sometimes I just don’t want to be alive anymore.” Being alive is hard, and often it would be so much easier to just …not. I don’t have the impetus or the energy to actually end my life, and I would never want to, but I can’t help sometimes to just… not want to exist.

And, this is the space I was in. Everything seemed unnecessarily difficult. My job had thrown a bit of a curveball at me, physically of course things are continuing to decline, there was drama with my cat, bad things happening to the people I love, horrors occurring daily in the world which I keep failing to protect myself from hearing about, and my continued search for a living situation is so desperately difficult it deserves its own post. Which, I may or may not get up the emotional fortitude to create some day. And so, two days ago, I completely erupted.

I was working from home that day. I had a role-playing game session that night planned with my friends, and was kind of freaking out about just not wanting to deal with the outside world. Not that I didn’t want to see my friends, and it’s not that I didn’t want to play, but that the concept of existing I any capacity in the outside world seemed untenable. Jay gave me an opportunity to decline to go, but of course my social anxiety and sad brain told me that if I couldn’t even manage to go out and have fun, then I was truly worthless. I was determined to make myself go out, even if I didn’t feel like it. I was watching Cosmos with Carl Sagan while I worked that day and I listened to Sagan talk about our thousands of nuclear bombs and how one of them is the equivalent destructive force of the entirety of the destructive force of all the bombs used in WW2. And then he wistfully pondered how we could wipe out the entire world population in the space of “a lazy afternoon” instead of one small corner of the world over 6 years and I just …totally lost my shit and started bawling.

Completely erupted.

The next 30 to 40 minutes were spent sobbing like a heartbroken thing, wailing into my hands, hyperventilating, or staring at a space on the wall with tears spilling down my cheeks. I can’t even articulate why I was crying, or what I thought it would help to rub the scratchy hand towel into my face until it hurt instead of blowing my nose, or why it just seems natural to rock my body back and forth or hold my fists in front of me and just shake, but that’s what I did. For almost an hour. There was no one sore spot, no one trigger, just that everything was terrible and I was broken and I wanted more than anything to just… Not have to exist.

Needless to say, I did not go to game that night.

Instead I took more than my usual dose of Ativan, put on a nature show that had not a shred of social commentary in it, cuddled the hell out of my cats, and eventually tried to sleep. Eventually I succeeded. I guess that’s one blissful thing about mental and emotional breakdowns, they leave you so completely exhausted that it’s easier to get to sleep.

I feel that this particular eruption is not quite over, there’s still a little hiccups that keep happening. I came across an image today, posted below, and I kind of lost it again. Just for a minute. Molly woke me up at 5 AM this morning to be petted, and I’m probably projecting but she seemed frustrated that I can’t quite had her properly anymore. And this is the first post I’ve ever cried while dictating. Sad brain has a lot to do with this, but of course there are legitimate underlying reasons for all of my distress definite geological pressures to go with the mystical phases of the moon and planets aligning just right. I wish I knew what drugs to take, how many virgins to sacrifice, to prevent these eruptions from happening again, but I know they’re going to. For as long as I am physically able to draw breath, and think, and feel. All I can really do is monitor the seismic activity of my emotional state and declare a state of emergency when I feel interruption is pending. And do my best to mitigate the damage when these eruptions are sudden severe, and catastrophic.

And try my damnedest to make sure this results in a verdant forest instead of a hellscape.

http://thelatestkate.tumblr.com/

Bad Mood Bears

tragerstreit2 Comments

It really doesn’t take much to tank a mood when you’re already predisposed to depression. I’m pathetically prone to frustration, as well, so it really doesn’t go well when I try to do something and am thwarted. Especially when it’s something simple, and I really ought to be able to Do The Thing, dammit, only Godzilla Disease says “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAnnnnnnnno.” I’m getting better with accepting physical limitations, but I’m still having a really hard time with accepting that I just don’t have enough mana to do a lot of things anymore. Like..the strength is there, but the exertion makes the thing impossible, or damn near. Or makes it impossible to accomplish anything AFTER Doing The Thing.

This comes up today because I was gonna do a video for you (really, honestly I truly was), but there were certain “beauty” regimens I’ve been completely neglecting and I’m FAR too vain to let y’all internet strangers see me with no hair extensions in and no makeup on. So I was doing stuff, and I wore myself the hell out even getting READY to take care of things, and then I got really frustrated and headachy, and my mood tanked. So rather than cry and feel sorry myself and sulk for the rest of the afternoon, I’m posting instead.

So here’s a list of things that wear me the hell out, that didn’t used to, and it’s frustrating as all get out.

1. Walking to my desk from the car when I go to work.
2. Restocking my minifridge with sodas.
3. Taking a freaking shower.
4. Laundry.
5. Feeding the cat AND getting food for myself in the same trip.
6. Putting on tights.
7. Shaving my head.
8. Going to more than two stores in one trip, even if I use the stupid little go-cart things that never work well.
9. Petting a cat for even half as long as they want me to.
10. Any stupid little repair/decorating thing like putting the poster back up that Molly knocked off the wall because she is a bitch.

Godzilla Disease is hard because it removes your ability to do things, but slowly, and gradually, so you can’t even get used to your new limitations because they are constantly changing. Which is DUMB and stupid and frustrating.

Anyway, that’s why you don’t get a video today. Soz.

And then I waited too long…

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..and the backlog of words waiting to be written backed up and I EXPLODED!

Okay, not really, but I’ve worked myself into that awful spot where updates are long overdue, but I can’t tell you about THAT because first I have to tell you about THIS, but it’s dependent on this OTHER thing for context, and I wanna talk about THIS but it needs to be a video but I really need to vlog about the cruise first, and then the wake…

And so for weeks I’ve posted nothing at all. Which is DUMB. So let me sum up some things, and then when I feel like I wanna say something, I can do that, and then fill in the back story as I can. The Cliff Notes version:

Clinic Days: Progressing as normal. Last time my breathing capacity was down a little, but it was still a strong normal. My hands continue to degrade. I made an appointment with Deb the Wicked Awesome PT who made me a Wolverine glove to hold my fingers up. I now have a wheelchair at home to get pushed around in.

Home search: Nothing. Despair.

Support Network: Lizzie is amazing and helps clean my place and I am VERY much enjoying the strengthened friendship that’s resulted out of the hangouts. She’s keen. Puce has become a freakin’ CHAMP-EE-UNNN in my life, to the point where he pushes me in my walker from the car to my desk every day. He’s amazing. Every dang day I am grateful for the people in my life who just kinda stepped into the roles I need, and I’m not at all sure what I did to deserve any of it.

Cruise: So much fun. You should do a cruise if you can.

Awake Wake: I literally don’t have the words. So many people, and so much love, and so much good food, and creativity, and hardly ANY crying, and SO MANY PEEPS OH MY GOD. My favorite part was sitting in the corner, watching all of my friends greet other mutual friends they haven’t seen in too long. It was the most uplifting thing I’ve ever experienced, and I’m so freaking grateful to everyone who came.

Vitamin shots: Don’t seem to be doing anything except make me pee pink, but I’m continuing them until next clinic day anyway.

Radicava: cautiously optimistic, but holy HELL is that expensive and complicated and..yeah. Every time I hear about it I think of Rikki-tikki-tavi.

Politics: Don’t even get me started. He wants to completely defund the ALS registry, which is the single most important tool we have to finding a cause and therefore a cure. I get angrier and more depressed with all of it every day, so I spend my days actively avoiding all of the news. It seeps in through my friends feed anyway, and I try to not be hateful and bitter. The world seems like a very ugly place right now, and I actively work to remain ignorant so that I can remain sane and functional. Bleh.

ALS Sucks: Someone else I knew with ALS died recently. I know his wife better than I knew him, and she’s an amazing person (seriously, caregivers are the unsung, underappreciated heroes of all time), but it brings the total number of people I know with ALS to….one. This is why I avoid the hell out of ALS forums. They’re seemingly all “EVERYTHING SUCKS” or “RIP So-andSo, who lost the fight with ALS today…” Meh. There’s only one cure for this disease, and it sucks.

Settling Affairs: Yeah, speaking of which I still need to finish that all up. It’s hard. I’m glad I don’t actually own anything of value.

Voice banking: Done! I have my digital voice and it is some serious Uncanny Valley stuff and I can’t wait to show it to you.

Work: I still have a job, I’m working from home two days a week now because it’s hard to do much of anything, and even getting out of bed and putting civilian clothes on and wrestling with myself to get in to work is a freakin’ challenge. But I still have to keep doing this because see: Home search.

So, that’s the quick (!) update. A lot. Realllllly need to post more. Soz. Soon. <3 I hope you're doing excellent things today.