And now, we interrupt this show for a very important health announcement:

Dr. Specialist the culprit thanks my disorientation and clumsiness is...

Lack of sleep.

No. Shit.

See, he thinks that a combination of the joint pain that comes and goes with Lupus combined with the stress of leaving my job is probably why I don't sleep through the night (I sort of come awake off and on but hadn't thought anythging of it) and THAT culminates in sleep deprivation.

And extended sleep deprivation would cause these bouts of crushing fatigue, the disorientation, forgetfulness, and clumsiness (and all other fun stuff).

Seriously? Sleep.

All that drama. The serious face of the docotor who sent me to a neurologist. The anxious explanation of a brain virus that occurs in second-stage Lupus. CD, Bear and I holding hands before the appointment....

and?

Sleep.

They're confirming the diagnosis with an MRI and other tests to be sure. But in the meantime, I've been prescribed Ambien and a blankie.

Posted by: Elizabeth at 02:07 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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I stood in the cool lobby, our movie finished. Dee was headed to the bathroom line but not me. I leaned against the wall and watched the people go by.

A woman is having a heated discussion into her cell phone on the other side of the fake palm tree. I debate informing her that it has no soundproofing capabilities, because she seems to think it does.

When I was in college, one of my suitemates was a Cancer survivor.

At 15, a growth had been found and removed. She'd been given a course of radiation. And then showed no signs of any illness after that. I knew her at 21, and would sometimes make what I thought was a callous remark - like "that boy is a Cancer on the Sorority."

I'd look at her, and mouth "sorry" and feel awful.

One day, she pulled me aside and asked me to stop apologizing. "The thing is, it was a month of my life 6 years ago. I hear about chemo and all that, and I feel like an imposter."

On my other side came a couple of ladies chattering in French. Both dressed more fashionably casual than I could ever hope to be. My size huge shorts sagging down my thighs, the red paint half chipped from toes. I close my eyes and try not to hear either conversation.

Dee takes forever. I suspect she has been kidnapped by one of those infamous Florida alligators that can swim up the plumbing and attack women on the toilet.

"You don't have authorization for that," Intent cell phone lady says. "You didn't have to pull me out of a movie for this. You already knew the answer."

I hope to myself that at least she'd shown the good manners to have her phone on vibrate.

"I'll speak to you in the morning," she snaps. "At the staff meeting."

She brushes past me, grim and tired-looking, and into Theater 2. "Barnyard." And she's ALL about the jolly kid's movie, I can tell.

It's Sunday night, and Dee has been kidnapped by the Ghost of Ladies Toilet. Right here in Oak Park, Illinois, a grave mystery has occured. But I don't have the strength to go investigate.

I am an imposter. I feel it humming through my veins.

I was diagnosed with Lupus 10 years ago, and since the initial sickness have never really suffered since.

Sometimes tired, sometimes, clumsy, sometimes confused. And a funny red rash like a sunburn on my face for a few days.

This is not the disease that kills so many. That is always a Usual Suspect on the TV show "House".

I used to feel like an imposter to even say I had the damn condition.

But now, I am ashamed. I feel like somehow, I have brought this on. After years of whining about wanting to quit my job, I finally do - and cursed us. Cursed us, yes. I am being frivolous in thinking I could have that power, but yet I suspect it. Did I make this happen? This crazy rush to ruin?

The fast approaching disaster of our finances, our lives, or my health.

You see me standing here, a regular Midwest Housewife. Except I am just a new kind of imposter.

Behind my facade, my nonchalance in the glow of a fake palm tree, is a tangled web of "what if" and "what next".

She climbs up the stairs to me, her sapphire eyes snapping.

"Thank Heavens," I said. "I didn't know if the kidnappers would release you. After all, I couldn't make ransom. Couldn't come up with enough Flounder to fit their demands."

She looks at me, a wrinkled-nose confused smile. And then she slips her arm around me to help me to the car.

"That's OK," she confides. "I used my ninja Yoga powers."

"It's all good, Supergirl," I commend her.

And laugh loud enough that the French ladies paused, to glance at me.

Posted by: Elizabeth at 03:46 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 676 words, total size 4 kb.

Quiet times have come before. A hush falling into my world, my thoughts racing maybe - but my words, still.

A saxophone playing while pictures slide across the screen. But no lyrics. No rhymes or soft alliteration. The sunset speaks for itself, because I can not.

Some call it writers' block, but the truth hides behind the label - as it will.

It's easy to write when life makes sense. Angry, lusty, giddy, wistful, grinning, yawning, yearning, bristling with outrage. Wanting a baby. Losing a baby. Seeking God. Losing weight. Gaining it back. Propping up my husband. Agonizing over my son. Tangles of friends. Battling the corporate titans. And sometimes winning. Tripping over the mess in the hall. Groaning over the mess in Washington. Striking up the grill over some new recipe. Striking out on a trip across the ocean. Stroking my son's hair and wondering how I would explain that daddy doesn't live here anymore. Slipping, with relief, back into love with my husband and sneaking something more than kisses before our son wakes.

Everything that is life. The granules that fall from my hand back into the sandbox. Reflecting the sun sometimes. And real.

I am sick, and that is real. My Lupus has flared up, due in part to my own carelessness. I have done all the things I should not do since leaving Mega - tossed away my structured (if stressful) existence for hours in the sun, poor diet, not enough sleep.

Lupus flares mean that my body is, sort of, attacking itself. My short-term memory flits on and off. My bones break easily (I have a broken knuckle and toe). I fall, for no reason. I become crushingly tired, holding my son in my arms in front of Noggin TV while I doze in and out. My kidneys struggle.

This is the worst flare since my diagnosis, a decade ago.

But it is not what silenced me. Only the last straw, really, in a battle against the quiet.

Life has stopped making sense.

Not that I contemplate the alternative.

But I do not know, quite literally, where I am going from here.

The money is running out. There is no better job for CD on the horizon. I had thought he would get one, at the last minute - which is his way. After all, before his Depression, he was making a fine living. But that hasn't happened, although he has looked.

Happy Montessori became a battleground last year, and is not for Bear this year. I am not even sure anymore that holding him back for a second year of Kindergarten is the right thing to do. And even if it is, the local public elementary school is so poor that it is regularly reviled in the newspaper.

There is no Elia, to help. I miss her. Our new health insurance, switched to CD's job after I left Mega, is inadequate. Our out-of-pocket for even regular lab tests is about 50%. And I am sick, which means even more bills. And even a part-time job waitressing is out of reach until I'm well.

We are about to run aground.

I am 40 years old, and I walked away from a lucrative career. I thought it was the right thing to do, and in many ways it has brought this family closer together than it has ever been.

But, I ... think it might have been a mistake that will cost us all everything.

Would CD and I have divorced if I'd stayed at Mega? I don't know. We were headed there, for a long time.

I don't know.

But I do know that the money is finite. And almost gone. And economizing simply won't make it be enough. 1+ 1 will never equal 3.

Something will be changing. Soon.

6 months ago, I was sleepless in fear for my marriage, my priorities, my son's childhood. I made a decision that I revisit every day. A leap of faith that is quickly turning to disaster.

There's a piece of dialogue I remember, vaguely. About someone saying, sadly, "look how things turned out". And the other person saying "we're not at the end yet."

That's what I hold on to. That in the next 2 months there is some kind of... miracle. That he gets a better job. That my health improves, so that maybe I can work too. And, you know, not end up in the hospital calling my mom for a loan and one of her kidneys. That ... well, that we find the path forward.

But for now, I battle my body. My terror. And my words? Have fled. For the dark quiet, and the unknown.

Posted by: Elizabeth at 08:36 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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