non-diagnosed

Well, I have been informed that my blood is (still) normal, on all tested counts. Well, I'm still not feeling normal, on all unmeasurable counts. I am still fatigued and aching and loopy and prone to flights of unnecessary and overheated panic. My doctor has given me the dishearteningly non diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. It's where they acknowledge that you are tired and feeling shitty and they don't know why, but don't think it'll kill you. They pat you on the head, tell you to get rest and eat well, and then they send you on your way. BOOM, NON-DIAGNOSED.

I am skeptical of this diagnosis, because it's not one, and because there's not like a definitive symptom list I can compare myself to, because, it's not a thing, so everyone who 'has' it is different. It's just NOT other things. Ehhn. I guess some people with fatigue disorders do well on antidepressants--it can help with the anxiety thing and also a little with the muscle weakness/fatigue itself. I guess I should try that. I might one day explode in a firework show of pharmaceuticals and pent-up flight reflex.

svensk

I think there is a specific way Swedish people make me feel. It's good, though. We have a visiting librarian from Sweden and he is making me feel the same sort of vague pleasedness and invulnerability that my Swedish classmates did the summer I lived in Vienna. Maybe it's the accent.

lasting

The upshot to having a body intent on personal sabotage is the sense of survivorship I feel when I make it from one end of the day to the other. Screw you, collapsing muscles and airy head and hyperactive nervous system. I freaking lasted through your evening-long hissy fit, and I did NOT faint and I did NOT jump down off the stage and run away. I freaking lasted through a hot and horrid and loong orchestra dress rehearsal. Three cheers for not-dead-yet.

(To self: Please, please, let me carry the ability to squeak by on willpower over to tomorrow's performance. It will be my last, until I am myself again. So maybe, last ever (melodrama optional))

There is more of my blood in a lab somewhere as we speak and I am hoping hoping hoping that one of the new tests will be able to give me a whip with which to whale on my damn body til it behaves again. This is not ok, me. This has all been not ok. 

bless me

Oh, my default certainly still is hope. I keep thinking, with eyes squeezed shut, maybe this sneeze will be the one that dislodges the monster!

one at a time

All week I will need to tell myself this:

The only thing that matters today is Monday.

don't tell me

The killer of enthusiasm is three hours of a narrowly controlled anxiety attack.

wait wait

There is NOTHING better than a lazy Saturday morning. I can't tell you how lovely it is to sit in the cozy chair by our cozy window in our cozy spare room and watch the rain and listen to old podcasts of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me (I smile the whole time). Is there anything that can make me happier? Oh wait, maybe going to see the Hunger Games this afternoon with my sibs. MAYBE.

(enthusiasm?!)

planning

I wonder if I'll celebrate being well again by going completely schedule free. Planning ahead and sticking to the road of least resistance has been the way I've been surviving. It plays to who I am naturally--cautious. But it's going too far. I don't want to be this way. And I tell myself I'm not really this tightly wound. It's the ickiness talking. I wonder if I'm capable of going the whole other way, if I ever get better.

with friends like these...

not green

There are a lot of reasons to dislike the fact that S works every Saturday. But then, I always do enjoy a three hour cup of coffee in my underwear while the dryer runs. I'm not able to be very active these days. Saturday mornings are down with that. 

more truths

I am digging this pomegranate yogurt I'm eating.

My favorite cellist (they do exist) called me charming.

I married the right guy. My husband is my perfect human. 

I will probably forget to wear green tomorrow.

Yesterday I was very rude to a circulation student assistant.

And just now I knocked over someone's bottle of soda, on purpose.

The lid was on.

There's a pigeon strutting around outside my window and it is absurd.

I am accidentally holding captive a 1986 bound volume of Poetry magazine under my desk

and a wrinkly old apple in my top drawer.

cut short

I need to speak only in short, provable truths. Speculation slays me. Whining is annoying.

My grocery lists are a word jumble. I let my tea steep for seven minutes before I drink it. I am still capable of smiling and laughing. I got out of bed this morning. I am surrounded by caring, supportive people. I can feel my heartbeat in my feet.

trying new things

I hadn't said anything yet, because I'm not sure of anything and am certainly not feeling wholly normal yet, but I THINK I've found a curse breaker, and it is craniosacral massage, and I THINK this may be what straightens me out in the end. I also think I'm still having disappointingly bad days after good ones (though, my god, you should have seen me on Saturday. I was glorious and clear-headed and ebullient). But. I may be on to something. The therapist, her name is Janis, was magic to my neck and head. I think I lost five pounds of lead cobwebs from my shoulders and four of my seven flaming skull-gerbils (trust me, they've been rampaging through my head for months). The tentative diagnosis? Super tight neck muscles doing a neat sort of self strangulation, and also, THAT DAMN VIRUS. Janis could feel the congestion and fluid build-up still up here in my head. I didn't know it. She told me that raw garlic is a good natural antibiotic and with her blessing I've been offending the nose of my husband for five days now and waiting for the flood. I am still not well.

cursed

I keep wondering if I'm under a spell. I told S that I'm a little worried there could be a girl out there who is in secret, unrequited love with him, and that's why three weeks into our marriage I got sick. She cursed me. I wonder what I can do to antidote myself. So far I've tried echinacea tea and clean pillowcases and sour warhead candy and How I Met Your Mother and a high school production of Fiddler on the Roof and yellow post-it notes all over my desk. I must be missing the mark still. Foaming handsoap? Cognitive behavioral therapy? Coffee ice cream? Dr Google is no help. I'm gonna go have my head massaged in two days and maybe that'll open up a hole in my skull to drain out the ick. I mean, the curse.

jumpy

Oh man. My startle reflex is on fire. Alarm testing might make me pee my pants. Where's my worry stone?

running on

My pants are too tight and I'm a little afraid of the thunderstorm and I'm drinking freshly bottled kombucha (I helped) and picking nail polish off my thumbnails and seeing double--I mean, the me who is really rather useful, and the me who is a blubbering, chubby mess of dizzy unselfworthiness. I've been sneezing a lot. 

scrambled

I'm scrambling today. There are two or three paper cuts on my left hand and one on my right wrist. You could say the microfiche cabinets are trying to kill me. My brain turns out to be normal, and I've seen it now, and that's weird. It's weird to look at scans of your own brain. I took them home with me on a cd. My brain is normal, to the expert eye. But I'm still scrambling, because I still don't FEEL normal. Maybe this is all the proof I'll get that this is a chemical thing, not a physical one. My doctor says I should try physical therapy for my neck and inner ears to see if that's the problem. She's an optimist. I'm a little surprised, honestly, that there wasn't a spider inside my skull. Onward, I suppose. I'm seeking solace and celebration(?) in a warm grande starbucks cup of chai. My mom makes it almost as well. She's not here with me at work, though. God, I wish someone was. Her, or S, or a warm fluffy blanket. I'm very much looking forward to having a clean Saturday and Sunday. I need to do nothing but try to be myself.