Someone has a grumpy face today. Who, you ask? ME. It's me. Nothing is working right. I'm getting news I absolutely cannot accept, and I'm getting frustrated with my old email trying to lock me out for two days when I needed to print out a proxy vote for an HOA and put a wet signature on it. Once I finally got my account back open, my internet tried to crap the bed. I mean seriously. Is there some cosmic reason I shouldn't have basic telecommunication functions today?
I called the movement disorder clinic at Anschutz today, to see whether they received my referral. Without bothering to talk about how long it would take to get the insurance paperwork, the woman on the phone said she'd look to see when the next available appointment would be with the doctor we selected. She said FEBRUARY. I cried out and said NO! I can't make it that long. I'm spending most days trapped in my house and I'm barely driving anywhere. She offered me a different doctor, in a mere two months. I've been on the verge of throwing up ever since. I have to be honest, I've been downplaying how bad this hurts and how terrifying it is, because I'm scared it's something very serious. For more than a month, when my head whips around, sometimes it's as suddenly painful as a car wreck. I feel like I'm in a wreck every six or seven seconds, for hours at a time now. It sends electrical shocks through my skin, across my cheeks and down the tops of my arms and legs. It freaking hurts. Every few seconds, it hurts. And less urgent, but no less valid, it's embarrassing. I am ashamed of my inability to be still. That's why I declined an invitation to the symphony last month. It's why I don't want to go out to eat. It's why I don't want to go to tomorrow's sales meeting at work. I dread Rotary every week, for fear it will get going really badly if I mellow out too much during the speaker's program. I feel helpless.
I tried to celebrate the holiday tonight. I intended to create a costume that matched our selected movies for my kid's Halloween party. I was going to be Nation McKinley from Shock Treatment. But I ran out of energy and I ran out of time. So I thought maybe I'd be a weeping angel from Doctor Who. I watched how-tos on the internet, and it seemed like a lot of labor. So I thought perhaps I'd just drag out last year's Doctor Who scarf. Then I got even more tired after I got out of the hot tub, and I frowned and decided I would wear pajama pants. From there, my entire costume changed. I put on my t-shirt that says "I'm FINE" with the word fine made up of other words like "hurting" or "fatigued" or "fighting." I reset the pins in my hair to mess up the bun I was wearing. I put on slippers and my leopard print bathrobe. And then I grabbed one old spoon from the drawer, and stuck it in my pocket. I went as a Spoonie with only one ration of energy left in reserves. It was the most honest costume I could come up with.
And I got a shock at the party. I thought there was basically no one left over age 15 who hadn't seen Rocky Horror yet. At the party, there were at least five people who hadn't seen it before, and double that who had never seen the follow-on movie Shock Treatment. Luckily the assembled crowd was open to the double feature. I don't think we offended anyone calling back to the screen. I did sing along every song, so maybe it wasn't so much fun sitting close to me, but that is no shock, really.
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