Welcome back My Dear Readers, to The Other Shoe. Through waves of pain, I reach out to you. Long ago, my pain medications began to fail, today they have all but abandoned me in a cave of dark waves of intractable pain. But, I am not alone. Sitting beside me, Alexander is having problems, too.
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Days after me moved in, Allen, accidentally, sat on Alexander in the bed. At first he showed no signs on pain or damage. Unknown to most people, rat’s bodily structure is made mostly of cartilage not bone like us humans. A rat can pass its entire body through a hole no larger than their head. I rejoiced that he had not been harmed, I fear too soon.
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For the past several days he has been sneezing, lots. Sometimes… blood. He has become lethargic and sleeps all day and night. Today, lying across my legs… he stopped breathing.
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Alexander is my Prince. He is my love, as is with any animal we care for a grow to love. He has just a huge impact on my life he now has s large role in my series of novels. He knows more than just his name. He understands more English than any of my other children. His markings make him distinct, like a Dalmatian dog, with a broken black mask over his soft and furry face.
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When Allen was away, he spent night and day at my side, loving me and licking away my tears. He would hold my hand, in his paws. Keeping the darkness from fully engulfing me, he fought at my side.
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He stopped breathing… and then he jumped. I picked him up and all his lips were black. HE started breathing, again, but all day today he has been lethargic and sleepy. I fear that I am loosing my very best furry little friend, and there is nothing I can do. Without, even, the resources to feed myself properly. I certainly do not posses the finances to have a vet see Alexander.
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What I struggle to understand, My Dear Readers, is the why. Why is darkness so determined to completely engulf me. Why must pain, or all types and sources, hunt me and haunt me in every day. This is not some karma. Nobody has wronged enough for this kind of pain, least of all myself.
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I give, of myself, freely. Yet I am; stolen from, belabored with daily levels of pain that would drive the average man to insanity… or suicide and now threats of stealing a life from me that matters so much… so deeply. Yet, everyday I write, I share, I publish, I open myself on the most fundamental levels to all of mankind. Yet, my suffering not only continues, it worsens. Day in, day out, the darkness around me grows and surrounds me.
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I hold Alexander, as I type this article. Hoping, and praying that his health rebounds… that he stays at my side for years to come. I, also, pray that my doctor sees fit to increase or change my pain medications. I can no longer work with the levels of pain I experience each and every day. I fight this darkness, I fight it with every thing I have.. with the very fiber of my being, I resist the darkness that surrounds and engulfs me.
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Will I prevail?
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As always I am honored that you come here and read my work.
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Thank you!
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Will you prevail? Yes, if you chose the light over the darkness.
ReplyDeleteI don't presume to offer you advice, Danny. Only the observation that in my worst times, when I chose the possible; to face the day and embrace its promise after a night of doubts, anguish, and self-recrimination, I found a way past despair. I had to learn that we have little control, except in how we chose to respond. That choice is a source of immense power.
I hope you find that power too.
Control? With the proper resources, Jim, we have immense control. Without financial resources? All we really have is how we spend our time until our disease takes the last we have to offer. I am, daily, overcome with pain that few humans will ever experiance. For the past decade I have 'taken' my pain... like the stoic little soldier my father taught me. However, that pain is now taking from me more than I have to give.
ReplyDelete.
The darkness that surrounds me is not of my creation. I did not ask to; have a neurological disease that is degenerative in nature, be in ever growing pain, or have money stolen from me by the Deacon of a local Lutheran church. I did not choose to have the health of my furry buddy falter. It is not "despair" that I communicate, it is the reality of my life. That one would see it as 'desperate', speaks volumes. Volumes that I continue to not only live but; write, publish, and battle ignorance and injustice while living in a desperate situation.
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The deep and unrelenting darkness, the waves of pain and challenges of immobility are not a matter of "choice". If I were a man of even moderate means, then, YES it would be my "choice". Again, money = power & power = control. Why else would the top 1% be horading money, if not to keep power from the people? The whole point of my article, was to communicate the reality of my life. I am not seeking pity, I would rather die alone than ask for pity.
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How I "respond" is clearly eveident. I repsond by calling out the darkness that surrounds me. I repsond by making my daily battle, public knowledge.