Scattered Thoughts

• I’m not sleeping again.  The past week it’s been pretty bad.  I just don’t feel like there’s any point in trying to fix it.  I’m used to sleep deprivation by now, and I can deal with it.  I’d rather just deal with it than go back on meds that leave me foggy all day long.
• Don’t pick a chauvinist fight with me on the internet at 2:00 am.  I get pretty punchy.  And if you’re dumb enough to provoke a fight by being a sexist asshole, then don’t think you’re going to win by insulting me and trying to shut me up.  It’s not going to work, and you’ll look like an idiot because I can dance rhetorical circles around you.  And I will laugh about it the whole fucking time.  Especially at your pathetic insults and attempts at intimidation.  I work in politics, and I talk to people much, much scarier than you, Princess Poop-for-Brains.  You’re gonna have to really step it up if you want to scare me.
• I went to a meet & greet with our Lieutenant Governor candidate and several state senators and representatives.  I went with a friend who lives in the same ward as I do, and the city councilor from our ward was there.  He came over and said hi, and he said, “You’re the only normal people here.”  Um, thanks?  I don’t often get called normal.  Ten minutes later he called me a unicorn, after I said I was one of those rare voters who is persuaded by facts and hard data rather than abstractions and fuzzy-wuzzy feelings about a candidate.  (We’ll leave my huge Platonic crush on Joe Biden out of this.)  So apparently I’m a normal unicorn.
• My gastroenterologist’s office called and said my labs all came back normal.  Uh, then why can I still not stand up for more than two minutes?  I just want a definitive answer about what the hell is going on with my body.  Even if it can’t be treated, even if it’s going to get worse, I want to know.  If I know what’s going on and what I can expect in the future, then I can accept it.  But how can you accept something when you don’t know what it even is?  How can I make plans and learn how to deal with it if I don’t know what’s happening?  It’s just so frustrating.
• My new case manager is somewhat better than the last one, but she never asks how I’m feeling or how I’m coping.  I can’t find it in me to bring up on my own how much I’m struggling, and I can’t ask for more help on my own.  But if she would just ask, then I could tell her.  But she doesn’t, so I can’t.  I hate how powerless that makes me sound.  Hell, I hate how powerless it makes me feel.  But for now, that’s the reality of the situation.

Collapse

So today I collapsed in the Walmart parking lot and proceeded to have a sobbing meltdown.  Apparently I’m one of THOSE Walmart people now.

I understand why it happened: I’m finally just getting over the sinus infection, I’m still dealing with the gut problems, and now I’ve got my period on top of that.  I could barely stand long enough to get from the bed to the bathroom, but this was the day C could take me grocery shopping.  I thought I could push through it.

Apparently I can’t.

I told her just to take me home, even though I hadn’t done any of my grocery shopping.  She offered to go into Whole Foods and buy my groceries for me, but I said no.  I just wanted to go home…but also I couldn’t come to terms with not being able to do such a basic thing for myself.  I mean, C’s not going to be around forever.  She’s not even supposed to be seeing me at all anymore, but we just mutually don’t mention that.

And next week I get to hear my gastroenterologist blow off my fatigue and weakness because my labs look fine.  I really like him for most stuff, but I feel like he just isn’t taking this seriously.  I mean, at my last appointment, I told him I have trouble standing up for more than 60 seconds, and he told me to reduce my dosage of iron.  I know I’m probably reading too much into it, but I keep thinking he thinks I’m just being histrionic because I have a psych history.  I really like him most of the time, but I don’t know how to make him understand how bad this is.

Maybe I just need to collapse in his office and start sobbing on the floor.  Too bad I can’t do that at will.

My RN friend is going with me to the appointment, though, so maybe she’ll be able to help get the point across.  Of course, then he’ll probably just send me to some other specialist, and that’ll take weeks to get an appointment, and then they’ll do tests, which will take more weeks, and meanwhile my level of functioning will continue to decrease.

Oh, and for added fun, it’s going to be yet another month before I can get my Nexplanon implant, too.  It has to be done during the first five days of your period.  I called today when my period started, but apparently their supplier screwed up.  They don’t have any implants, and the nurse couldn’t tell me when they’d be getting more.  And my NP wasn’t working today, so I have to wait for her to call me back tomorrow and find out what the hell we’re doing about that.  Or I may just beg her to do a hysterectomy if the pain doesn’t let up.

Could something, ANYTHING, please go right for me?

Public Transit Rant

This morning I had an appointment with my GP.  It was really necessary, since I’ve been sick for almost five weeks.  My landlady was able to give me a ride into downtown this morning, and from there I could take the bus to my doctor’s office, which is in the next town over.

It shouldn’t need to be this complicated.  See, my street is right on a bus line.  That bus goes straight into downtown, which is where I catch the bus to my doctor’s office.  Easy enough, right?

LOL NOPE

Because a few months ago, the regional transit authority decided to revise the routes.  For the route that goes by my house, they didn’t actually change any of the streets or anything–but apparently they instituted a new policy to eliminate all stops between downtown Northampton and Holyoke (two towns over, 9.5 miles away).  I live two miles from downtown Northampton, and even though the bus route goes right past my street, more than half the drivers will no longer stop there.  I don’t know what the deal with this new policy is.  I mean, you’re saving what, two minutes tops by refusing to stop?

So that leaves me with only the option of walking home from downtown.  Two miles doesn’t sound so bad, but it’s along a busy highway with no sidewalk or shoulder.  There have been several fatal car v. bicycle collisions there, and pedestrians are even less visible to drivers than bicyclists.  Add to that the fact that I am physically disabled.  My body literally cannot handle a two-mile walk most days.  I run a very real risk of having my muscles give out and collapsing on the side of the road.

I could probably qualify for paratransit, but that costs three times the normal bus fare.  They also require you to book the trip 48 hours in advance, which wouldn’t have worked since this was a last-minute appointment.

So today, I tried taking the bus home, hoping I’d get a sympathetic driver.  In that regard, the cane is sometimes useful.  I think they ought to stop for anyone who needs that stop, but I’m not going to complain if I get a cripple sympathy stop, either.  But the driver today was a huge jerk and refused to stop anywhere vaguely near my street.  So I had to go all the way to Holyoke.  Instead of staying on that bus for the return trip, I waited an hour, hoping I’d get a different driver.  No such luck.  Same guy, still wouldn’t stop.  So then I wound up back in downtown Northampton again.  In utter desperation–I was literally about to burst into tears in the middle of town–I texted my landlady.  Luckily, she was able to take off from work for a few minutes and run me home, for which I was immensely grateful.  It just shouldn’t be necessary.  When I moved to this apartment, I specifically sought out somewhere that was accessible by public transit–and it was, when I moved in.  But now I literally can’t go anywhere on my own, so I don’t leave the house.  I looked into moving somewhere closer to town so I’d have better access to public transit, but everything was miles out of my price range.  So I’m trapped here.

Meanwhile, all the politicians in Boston, when asked about improving public transit, talk about a multi-million dollar project to expand the Orange Line.  Western Mass never gets mentioned.  I want to shake them and say, “Look, asshole, let me tell you a thing.  I’ve used public transit in Boston, and it’s fucking great already.  Meanwhile, I can’t even get to a fucking doctor’s appointment out here.  I can’t go grocery shopping.  I can’t get to the pharmacy.  But yeah, let’s definitely sink all the transit funding into improving a system that already works instead of fixing a system that doesn’t.  ‘Cause nothing west of Boston actually exists.  We’re just motherfucking unicorns out here.”