Had my ultrasound this morning - hurt some, but it was manageable. All the while I was laying there, thinking thoughts that shouldn't be thunk .. like how this is probably my 17th ultrasound, and every single time I have one, I'm laying there in that dark room watching the wand scroll through the shadows of my insides and wishing I was there to see the shadows of someone else instead, or of how many other people have laid on that same table, staring into the tv screen or at the flowers painted on the ceiling, hoping for something: for something to be there, or for something not to be there, and holding their breath either way.
And I'm holding my breath too - as directed, of course - and trying not to cry, even though the pressure - the pushing of the wand and the weight of the world - seems immense and overwhelming, when you're laying there in that dark room. My stomach is covered with goop, and now bruises, and I'm once again worried that this can go either way - they'll find it or they won't, they can fix it or they can't - and that, either way, it never seems to help much.
I don't know if you ever did this kind of thing when you were a kid, but they used to sell these sand art kits, where you'd take different colored sand and build layers into patterns or swirls or whatever, and keep them in little jars that you could give as gifts. I made a bunch of them when I was little, and when I was teaching, used them in a lesson on pattern making that the kids all seemed to love. Lately, I feel like my health is one of those jars - just layers and layers of different problems, each sort of shifting now and then, each building on the other, mixing in a bit here and there, all of them just continuously accumulating. And there are patterns, sure, but maybe they're accidental, and some of them might be on purpose, but even so, it doesn't matter all that much, because you're still stuck with the final outcome - all of those layers have built something, only, in my case, it's not something I'd be giving anyone as a gift.
All of those layers just seem to keep adding up, and instead of being on the outside looking at them all, I feel buried underneath them.
There is no cure for chronic illness - I get that. I happen to have a bunch of chronic illnesses for which there is not only no cure, but very little in the way of effective treatments - I'm not happy about it, but I get that too. The part that I can't seem to come to grips with is how those layers just keep adding up - got an infection, got exhausted, started hurting, just never got better. Got dizzy, started passing out, stopped being able to walk. Started using the chair so I wouldn't be bed-bound, started gaining weight, stopped having an appetite. Started hurting more, stopped exercising altogether, got different pains. Got more infections, got random infections, got constant infections. Got nauseous, couldn't eat, gained weight anyways, started existing on a comfort food diet because it was the only thing I could keep down, got some random new disease. Got hospitalized, couldn't bounce back, ruined sleep cycle. Got surgery, couldn't bounce back, got sicker. Did stupid shit, did smart shit, did NOTHING - still didn't get better: It just seems like layer after layer, more questions on top of more problems, and nothing ever gets solved.
Even things the doctors told me would be solved haven't been solved - are my sinus infections down since I got my tonsils etc taken out? Sure; they've decreased by about 1/3, which is nice, but is still a sinus infection every three-four weeks on average. The pain meds help, certainly, but not even by a third, and still I haven't had a pain free day - or even a pain-lite day - in over ten years. Ten Fucking Years. That's a long time for hurting. A lot of layers.
I don't know: I promised myself, after yesterday's rant, that I'd write something more positive today, but I am just not feeling it. I'm feeling trapped and overwhelmed, and out of control. I'm stuck at the bottom under all of those layers, and it's hard to breathe under here.
And that's all I could think about this morning, laying there in the dark, knowing that other people have it worse than me, and some people have it better, but either way I'm still stuck with what I've got. And I don't like what I've got, not even a little bit right now.
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