Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Okay, the week has gotten off to a rough start. Moving hurts. Ow. Noise hurts. Ow. Not-moving sometimes hurts. Ow. Let's see ... I got to that recital on Friday night (late, due to traffic) and hung out with folks for a while afterward, and that was good. On my birthday I was feeling run down from having gone out Friday but still wanted to 'do something' to celebrate the day, even if low-key, and pizza with a friend fit the bill nicely, though by the time we finished, background noise in the restaurant (chosen partly to be a not especially noisy weekend-dining place, because I had already noticed my ears were being odd) was starting to make me wince. Sunday, I was achy and exhausted and still experiencing hyperacusis, never quite managed to get myself moving, but hey, 'twas a Sunday and I should've been resting up for Monday anyhow. So of course my body decided to cross me up by only letting me sleep one %$*@ing hour Monday morning -- crashed expecting to get a decent amount of shuteye, woke spontaneously an hour later, was not able to get back to sleep again then or later in the day. Kept trying for a nap before evening, was pretty ragged and headachy by the time evening rolled around, did not make it out of the house, missed 3LF rehearsal Yet Again. So yesterday, when I did crash, I slept ten hours, woke too achy to move, pecked at the computer for a while, slept another five hours, woke up with my blood sugar low enough that my glucometer thought it had to remind me that the number was a low one (reading was 60 mg/dL, which makes "hypo check" flash on the display), ate a normal meal despite temptation to pig out on carbs, felt worse after eating (when my blood sugar got up to a typical after-meal range -- about 130), and the whole time my hearing has been (still is) sensitive enough that normal passenger-car traffic -- regular cars, not buses, trucks and punks with thumpythumpy stereos or missing mufflers -- is painful. And yesterday was a many-many-sirens day (mostly fire trucks, I think, but some ambulances and police cars in there as well). My ears are still like that today. Not fun. And it makes watching television difficult ... I bailed partway through Obama's speech, because trying to hear past the traffic noise from outside meant turning up the volume enough that the frequent applause was even more painful than the traffic. I recorded it to watch later. Or maybe I'll just look for a transcript.

With the too-much-sleep yesterday, I slept through the times to move my car. I've not yet looked to see whether I got a parking ticket or not. Could be worse anyhow -- if I'd managed to move it across the street the night before, as I often do, I also would've slept through the time to move it back before rush hour, and it would've been towed.

Now my sleep is sufficiently messed-up that I'm having trouble remembering what day it is. I keep thinking that it's already Thursday or Friday, and I've got a time-sensitive errand that must be done each of those days, so I was kind of freaking out about not feeling well enough to go anywhere and it getting close to the end of the business day, until I finally remembered that today is still Wednesday.

At least today I'm finding it merely painful to walk on level ground, not actually difficult to accomplish like yesterday. (Stairs are still ... stairs. *sigh*) Poor Perrine keeps wanting me to play.

I treasure my ability to think and my ability to communicate, but there have been times in the last couple of days when I've just been so #$%^ing tired of the pain pain pain, that I've found myself thinking that being in a drugged-out semi-conscious but pain-free haze (which would take stronger drugs than I've ever gotten my hands on) would be better. Feelin' a bit desperate. It's the relentlessness of the pain, even more than the intensity, that does me in. (I know there are other chronic-pain sufferrers reading this who know what I mean.)

So, unsurprisingly, the start I'd made on my to-do list and my email backlog last week before I got interrupted with more urgent to-do items, has evaporated. Ain't gotten diddly done the past few days. Bleah.

God, I hope the next three days are better than this. Gotta get stuff taken care of tomorrow, and I really want to feel well enough to go to the party of Friday.

Wish me luck.

I had more to say, but I'm going to split it off into a separate entry, to make it easier for folks to skip the complaining in this one. The next entry is mostly unfinished snippets unrelated to anything else anyhow.