I Wasn't Prepared for This
Things I've found myself unprepared for. . . well, there's a list, and like any red-blooded human being they range from hysterical, tragic, to embarrassing.
These days . . . Lady Gaga's new album hits home more than I would have expected, especially since I'm not a large LG fan. Yet, for several days--okay a near week--I've been blaring it pretty regular. That being said, the irony resonates as between blaring LG and extended Beyonce playlists I have been editing and writing women's narratives. Why, yes . . . yes, I see the oxymoronic humor. I certainly wasn't prepared for that album to shock me awake these days. Parallel to that, though, that stupid thing called Lupus has been knocking on the inside cellar door again.
The knock, knock of Lupus for me typically comes with crushing muscle cramps, joint on fire between the prongs of a c-clamp, and kidneys knocking out their own beat to Use Your Illusion II. The slow ballad beats of "November Rain" aren't so bad, but when "Live or Let Die" starts knocking I want to cry. In all honesty, I'm sitting on a warped, slightly distorted version of "Live or Let Die" right now. Twenty four years in and I'm still taken back by the veracity of this beast I didn't choose to live with . . . Though, when you've walked around with Lupus as your life partner for this long you've learned tricks and gimmicks to shimmy through life and the day. Twenty four years stands for something . . .
I don't remember when, but I do know that I've been living with the public mask for so long now I have no idea how to remove it. When I walk out of my house I grin and fake it until I can come back and collapse, catch my breathe, and exhale a few "sweet mother of god" exclamations. I realize I should rest far more than I do, and yet I do not. A large part of that comes from the fact that I've never been able to just let the body take over me. Instead, car insurance, rent, groceries . . . they take priority, and then if I don't hustle and grade those student essays and exams . . . you get the picture. In the end, I might be upright, in a pencil skirt, boots, tights, and blouse looking like some kind of professional icon with my hair pinned on top of my head and my glasses affixed, but trust me on this one when I say the outer image is not always the inner. With Lupus and life I've got that compartmentalized image down to a refined art.
Two weeks after I left my husband I went to Europe. In the course of that trip I had a work presentation in Poland. It was for a conference I set up and ran with that woman known as my bestie and world travel partner. In that presentation, the two of us showcased our upcoming book chapter comparing Turkish and American bridal culture. Tanfer was the only one in the room who knew what was going on with me, and the irony . . . my slide show--complimenting my talk--looked like (as she said) something out of David's Bridal. An end slide was even a pic from that day when I worea white an off-white dress, of the bottom of my dress, with layers of tule and that mermaid slip with my beaded lace layers, my cowboy boots with pink and purple stitching sticking out, and his shoes next to me. The marriage was terrible, but that pic, one of me and my agnostic daughters, and one of those two little girls dancing with their parents are my favorite images from that day. That being said, just as I compartmentalized the destruction within then when it comes to Lupus I pack that nightmare away into a tightly sealed bag. Unfortunately, the duck tape I wrap it in sometimes breaks and the bag's bulging seal gives. Sometimes it is a slow Lupus leak. Sometimes . . . sometimes it is a nasty waterfall of aches and various stages of misery.
That in mind, this Lupus beast has been knocking her bitch ass head for a awhile now, and I went and trudged my stubborn self to the specialist a week or so ago. Ask me if I'm going back to him? Go on . . . you know you want to . . .
Yeah, when you walk into the room and he says "Well you look pretty good to me, you can't be sick" there's a sign . . . Of course, don't forget the shock that statement assaults. Then of course, when you tell him three times (because he can't bothered to remember) that you've got joints that feel like c-clamps are putting down the pressures of Satan, kidney's auditioning for the Rockettes, and a chest gasping for air if you walk to fast or look the wrong way and he just says "oh, okay" . . . As I've noted to others, I'm not keen on being felt up by every MD this side of the Mississippi but the dude didn't do an exam. I got a fat prescription for a NSAID, and while this is not my first round at the NSAID rodeo it is my first with naproxen. Yeah, I wasn't prepared to launch into another round of NSAID hell. I was not prepared for this.
With that being said, let's just say that this weekend was practice excursions for World War III inside my intestines. I mean, as in the gas is no plaq fart but man . . . the rolling thunder certainly makes your muscles sore. Of course, what I know you really want to know is when I was on the toilet my stomach roared and thunder rolled outside at the same time. I'm fairly certain my heart stopped for a full minute. I cried a little. My gawd the fear that my stomach was that loud. Mommy. Mommy. Mommy.
A decade plus ago there was a short lived pill called Vioxx. Apparently it ate people's stomach lining and threatened the viability of heart walls. . . I, on the other hand, did not have the horror reactions to it, but the FDA still said that the potential to dance a jig and not blow out the toilet had too great of a threat . . . apparently, the the price of fashion and pain analogy doesn't apply here. Yes, I wax nostalgic about a NSAID long removed from my life.
In the end, the first three days were damn near unbearable hell. I mean, I have a pro-con list over here with the cons far surpassing any positive. I mean when I eat Tums like cookies, wash them down with Pepto, and still roll around feeling like a basket of leftover deplorables . . . the muscle pain is mostly gone, well except for the kidneys knocking. Yeah, I wasn't prepared for this.
In class the other day, while standing in the aisle between students, my stomach roared so loudly--after I had eaten a Tums in front of my class--that my students side eyed me. I was all "Dude, that's the drugs." Yeah, I was not prepared for that.
Though, in odds turns of the trade my insomnia is largely containable this week. Yeah. This drug from a level of hell Dante never wrote about doesn't make me drowsy, but my mind and body does sleep more than I do any other time. Shit. I wasn't prepared for this. A drug so vile I'm sure I can clear a seven train subway car, while watching my stomach rumble like an 80s rocker's hips on stage, and then . . . in the midst of that torture I get to sleep at night. Now there's a Lupus oxymoron I wasn't prepared for.
Until I can pour the ooze back into its containers, I'll keep waxing on and performing the masquerade. After all, it is what I know . . . that I am prepared for.
These days . . . Lady Gaga's new album hits home more than I would have expected, especially since I'm not a large LG fan. Yet, for several days--okay a near week--I've been blaring it pretty regular. That being said, the irony resonates as between blaring LG and extended Beyonce playlists I have been editing and writing women's narratives. Why, yes . . . yes, I see the oxymoronic humor. I certainly wasn't prepared for that album to shock me awake these days. Parallel to that, though, that stupid thing called Lupus has been knocking on the inside cellar door again.
The knock, knock of Lupus for me typically comes with crushing muscle cramps, joint on fire between the prongs of a c-clamp, and kidneys knocking out their own beat to Use Your Illusion II. The slow ballad beats of "November Rain" aren't so bad, but when "Live or Let Die" starts knocking I want to cry. In all honesty, I'm sitting on a warped, slightly distorted version of "Live or Let Die" right now. Twenty four years in and I'm still taken back by the veracity of this beast I didn't choose to live with . . . Though, when you've walked around with Lupus as your life partner for this long you've learned tricks and gimmicks to shimmy through life and the day. Twenty four years stands for something . . .
I don't remember when, but I do know that I've been living with the public mask for so long now I have no idea how to remove it. When I walk out of my house I grin and fake it until I can come back and collapse, catch my breathe, and exhale a few "sweet mother of god" exclamations. I realize I should rest far more than I do, and yet I do not. A large part of that comes from the fact that I've never been able to just let the body take over me. Instead, car insurance, rent, groceries . . . they take priority, and then if I don't hustle and grade those student essays and exams . . . you get the picture. In the end, I might be upright, in a pencil skirt, boots, tights, and blouse looking like some kind of professional icon with my hair pinned on top of my head and my glasses affixed, but trust me on this one when I say the outer image is not always the inner. With Lupus and life I've got that compartmentalized image down to a refined art.
Berlin, Germany (2014)
Two weeks after I left my husband I went to Europe. In the course of that trip I had a work presentation in Poland. It was for a conference I set up and ran with that woman known as my bestie and world travel partner. In that presentation, the two of us showcased our upcoming book chapter comparing Turkish and American bridal culture. Tanfer was the only one in the room who knew what was going on with me, and the irony . . . my slide show--complimenting my talk--looked like (as she said) something out of David's Bridal. An end slide was even a pic from that day when I wore
That in mind, this Lupus beast has been knocking her bitch ass head for a awhile now, and I went and trudged my stubborn self to the specialist a week or so ago. Ask me if I'm going back to him? Go on . . . you know you want to . . .
Yeah, when you walk into the room and he says "Well you look pretty good to me, you can't be sick" there's a sign . . . Of course, don't forget the shock that statement assaults. Then of course, when you tell him three times (because he can't bothered to remember) that you've got joints that feel like c-clamps are putting down the pressures of Satan, kidney's auditioning for the Rockettes, and a chest gasping for air if you walk to fast or look the wrong way and he just says "oh, okay" . . . As I've noted to others, I'm not keen on being felt up by every MD this side of the Mississippi but the dude didn't do an exam. I got a fat prescription for a NSAID, and while this is not my first round at the NSAID rodeo it is my first with naproxen. Yeah, I wasn't prepared to launch into another round of NSAID hell. I was not prepared for this.
With that being said, let's just say that this weekend was practice excursions for World War III inside my intestines. I mean, as in the gas is no plaq fart but man . . . the rolling thunder certainly makes your muscles sore. Of course, what I know you really want to know is when I was on the toilet my stomach roared and thunder rolled outside at the same time. I'm fairly certain my heart stopped for a full minute. I cried a little. My gawd the fear that my stomach was that loud. Mommy. Mommy. Mommy.
A decade plus ago there was a short lived pill called Vioxx. Apparently it ate people's stomach lining and threatened the viability of heart walls. . . I, on the other hand, did not have the horror reactions to it, but the FDA still said that the potential to dance a jig and not blow out the toilet had too great of a threat . . . apparently, the the price of fashion and pain analogy doesn't apply here. Yes, I wax nostalgic about a NSAID long removed from my life.
In the end, the first three days were damn near unbearable hell. I mean, I have a pro-con list over here with the cons far surpassing any positive. I mean when I eat Tums like cookies, wash them down with Pepto, and still roll around feeling like a basket of leftover deplorables . . . the muscle pain is mostly gone, well except for the kidneys knocking. Yeah, I wasn't prepared for this.
In class the other day, while standing in the aisle between students, my stomach roared so loudly--after I had eaten a Tums in front of my class--that my students side eyed me. I was all "Dude, that's the drugs." Yeah, I was not prepared for that.
Though, in odds turns of the trade my insomnia is largely containable this week. Yeah. This drug from a level of hell Dante never wrote about doesn't make me drowsy, but my mind and body does sleep more than I do any other time. Shit. I wasn't prepared for this. A drug so vile I'm sure I can clear a seven train subway car, while watching my stomach rumble like an 80s rocker's hips on stage, and then . . . in the midst of that torture I get to sleep at night. Now there's a Lupus oxymoron I wasn't prepared for.
Until I can pour the ooze back into its containers, I'll keep waxing on and performing the masquerade. After all, it is what I know . . . that I am prepared for.
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