April 14, 2008
There’s
a funny thing about becoming neurologically ill. Apart from all the interesting visual and spatial distortions
that I *know for a fact* other people pay good money for.
While
you’re stumbling around in the thick of it, unable to balance, addled on the
drugs, falling down and frothing at the mouth and occasionally breaking bones,
you come to a rather startling realization.
People
start to fear you.
They
regard you as a Thing Apart. A leper.
No
matter that you spring up jauntily afterwards, brush yourself off, dab off
whatever blood is oozing and pick up where you left off: people get freaked out.
Your
friends start to fall away. They are
afraid that this is some type of madness, something contagious.
In
fairness, it must be pretty frightening to witness. And the drugs change you.
They do: it’s a fact. You become distant, disinterested. And depending on the drug: sedated, manic,
confused, forgetful.
But
here’s the thing. And a case in point.
I have a
dear, dear friend.
Who now
seems absolutely terrified of me.
Despite my calls and my emails, she has not responded. I’ve been there for her in some of her most
difficult times. I’ve celebrated her
triumphs with her; I’ve held her while she’s cried. I know all the secrets of her soul and she knows mine.
But
now? Since all of this has become so
much worse?
Nothing. Not a word.
I can’t
find it in my heart to blame her: sometimes there just are no words and I know
there is no malice in her. She has
recently found the happiness that she so richly deserves and I hope with all my
heart that it lasts her a lifetime.
All the
same, I feel abandoned. And so bereft
of this friend.
I have
no support system here and what’s going on with me neurologically (we won’t get
into it here, but it is a bit more than simple epilepsy) is pretty scary.
One of
my drugs kept me up for 90 hours straight, until one of my long distance cop
friends (a former neurological nurse) urged me to “bother” my doctor on the
weekend. I did, and he drugged me into
sleep.
That’s
the other thing: drugging me to sleep
leads to all sorts of complications. I
don’t react well to barbiturates. They
make me paranoid, make me forget things.
I get major hangovers from them, can’t shake them off for days. This morning for example, I put a pot of
coffee on and forgot to put the pot under it.
Result: a kitchen floor full of
coffee.
And in
the meantime, it’s an endless parade of MRIs and CT scans. A PET scan is scheduled but because there’s
a big waiting list: I wait.
People
fear this illness and they fear me in the grip of it.
I don’t
even want to talk about my own fear, which I keep at bay by writing.
Word of
my condition has spread and has rendered me unemployable.
Nobody
wants the liability. Oh, I’m a great
lawyer, but who needs the lawsuit if I fall over and split my skull open in
court? It’s compassion galore to my
face, but no job offers.
On good
days, I can go out because the ground and sky are staying where they’re
supposed to be. On bad days, I see them
at 45 degree angles relative to where I am and keeping my balance is impossible.
I do
have one friend here who has been my salvation: Sara. She’s busy
inventing her own gourmet cat food business so she works at home but she always
has time to come over and sit with me when my own personal spatial perception
thing refuses to accord with the laws of physics and gravity. She has her own 1-10 scale of “bug-eyed”
when it comes to me. She makes me tea,
she brings the cats food, she sits and gossips. She never treats me like a freak.
Natalie
is another lifeline. I’m currently
working on my first novel and she’s been thrust into the role of my
editor. She has absolutely no pity and
I adore her for that. I don’t want
pity. I want honesty and the
recognition that I’m still here: I’m
still me. She sends me constant
emails, the gist of which is “keep writing, keep writing, keep writing.” And no bullshit from her: she says it’s brilliant writing: I trust her not to sugarcoat it and so I
keep at it.
I
sometimes think it’s the only thing that keeps me alive.
I’m way
too young to give up on everything just because my brain has decided to
germinate something it shouldn’t.
I can
still write, and I’ll get this bloody book done. My brain owes me that much, I think. Whatever else is in there affects my balance, the way I see
colours, my sense of dimension but it owes me at least one great book.
But it
doesn’t change who I am. I don’t talk
to Xenu, God doesn’t pop by for tea, I don‘t have delusions or experience
magical thinking. I see no
unicorns. I’m not a witch, a vampire, a
shape shifter, a goblin or a werewolf.
I don‘t come from another planet, nor am I invisible. I can’t fly or raise people from the dead. I
don’t get messages in my fillings. I
don’t see ghosts or think I’m the King of France. The cats don’t talk to me.
I don’t hear voices or think I’m a prophet. I can’t walk on water or change base metal into gold. I can’t predict the future or even tell you
if it’s going to rain tomorrow.
There’s
just this thing in my head.
Apart
from that, I’m still here.
Still
here.
Still ME.
And I
can still laugh.
Till next time.
Morrigan
