Rabble Babble

Like most people my age, there are deep creases and abundant lines that score my face, my body, my soul.  Unlike most people, along side the lines and creases are tumors.  Some the size of white golf balls and yellow tennis balls, some the size of green peas.  Although there is nothing colorful about them, the bruises that rise like tulips in the spring (with no memory of how I injured myself) are deep purple, red and black, if I happen to catch sight of them early on and before turning to the color of those tennis balls, those peas.   I once found one behind my left thigh that was so deep in color, so large (taking up the whole of my thigh) it looked like a pressure wound.  Sigh.

I am trying to imagine what life would be like without NF.   What would I have done if not limited by pain?  And how is it that my 88 year old father who has spinal stenosis and deals with horrific pain as well, gets around daily?  He hates Sundays because he has nothing to do.  I worry about the medication he takes, but am amazed at how he makes me feel like a big baby.  I know comparing does not good, but it’s hard not to when I hear about all the things he does everyday.

Did I just opt out?  It sure doesn’t feel that way.  Last night a friend picked me up and we went out for a bite…the first time I’ve been out in a couple weeks (other than grocery shopping).  I was in such agony by the time we headed home I could not wait to lay back down.  If my dad feels what I was feeling, it’s beyond my understanding how he does it.  My friend was really worried about me.  I try not to let people witness those moments, but it was out of my control.  Just like everything else, just like everyone else.  As the saying goes, we make plans, G-d laughs.  What a sense of humor.

My hands are tingling now.  And I need ANOTHER thousand dollars worth of dental work….a new crown.  And I still need the third one I never took care of because the emergency root canal.  Why do I keep doing it?  Well I’d have no teeth in my mouth if I pulled them every time this happened.  I am baffled by people who take these horrible drugs for ‘recreation’.  They have destroyed my digestive system, my teeth, my balance….I sometimes watch skating, or that great new show, “Smash” (watch it if you haven’t) and I am so jealous of people who can move their bodies like that.  Who have healthy bodies, and who take care of them.

Sometimes I fantasize about being a walk-in.  One soul who takes over the body of another (by mutual agreement and for the advancement of both souls).  Just to savor, for a short time, what it feels like to be in the world and not just of it.  But it only takes a few seconds to realize that once again, as bad as it is, I have it good compared to the rest of the world.  And that’s part of the problem, isn’t it?  To live around abundance, to be in a place (the US) where anything is possible and being helpless to do a damn thing about it.   And yet, so much of the population in the US is in the same predicament as I am, for different reasons: Staring at abundance through the plate-glass window of life, and being keyless.  Only one thing to do: Count my blessings.