Liability

Otherwise known as oops, I did it again.

What you may ask?

Well, I’ve got a little bit of a radar for patterns and I was getting a little bit worried as October progressed because after October, November follows (naturally) and I haven’t really got such a good track record when it comes to Novembers.  Do you remember the bounce?  Do you remember the bonce? I do.  And the most important thing I learnt was that I never want to repeat either experience ever again.  (In fact, having watched a few too many episodes of emergency services documentaries of late, I have been made increasingly and uncomfortably aware of how fortunate I was, falling that far with such minimal damage to me or anything else).

I don’t want my fear or superstition to lead to clumsiness.  I tell myself that it was just a random thing, a chance thing that both of those cheerful incidents occurred within the same month.  Maybe November just isn’t a good time of year in my world; it’s getting dark, the clocks have changed, the lurgis are flying …

What scares me most though is that I don’t seem to be getting any better.  There, I admit it.  I admit that first, I’m scared and second, that I’m not getting any better.  I’m used to the ebb and flow of this wretched illness but the tide doesn’t seem to be turning in my favour any more (seeing as we’re going with sea metaphors in this sentence.  Are they metaphors?  I can’t remember).  I keep expecting to feel better, there’s so much that I want to do once I’m feeling a little better.  It’s boring and frustrating living with this level of exhaustion where being able to sit on the sofa, feet up, propped up, is an exciting treat, instead of having to lie in bed all day.  And I’m a burden.  I feel that I am such a burden, a boring, never-ending burden.  My management strategy for ME was to be ill in my own private space and time and it just isn’t respecting that any more.  I can’t pretend to be well any more, I can’t save up my energy for the necessitous splurges that life requires because I don’t have any, full stop.  I am tired and ill wherever I go, whenever.  And that sucks.  I liked being able to pretend.  I liked being in control.  I liked not having to impact on others.  I liked not making a fuss.

So November?  Well, I don’t think I can get any worse than it is at the moment.  Hopefully.  But I may just have scored a hat trick.  And it’s nothing to do with that Western hat that I insist on wearing.

I have sharp fingernails.  I have skin that marks easily.  So lying in bed, in the dark, attempting to sleep after what could only be described as a totally crazy day, I wasn’t too surprised when I felt a scab on my ear.  I probably nicked it with my nail, I thought, and didn’t think anything more of it.  Sunday night, after yet another crazy day (I managed these two days thanks to careful abuse of caffeine (a usually verboten substance to sensitive little me) and sugar and have spent an entire week, so far, recovering in bed), it was still there and it wasn’t just a little scab line from a scratch either.  I was mystified.  I cleaned it up and went to bed.  Or it may have been Monday morning, I don’t really remember because my Memory has long since departed.  (I miss it still).  By lunchtime this rather large scab was hanging past my ear and there was blood everywhere.  I don’t do blood, have I said before?  Well, maybe not everywhere, just on my hands and a tissue and enough to worry me.  So I eventually staunched the bleeding and found the scab had disappeared and I was left with a rather large section of my earlobe missing.  To say I was distressed is putting it mildly.

I don’t like to lose a chunk of my ear (OK, maybe not a chunk but a large piece of skin about yea big and so deep) without being duly informed of how and why.  Is that really so unreasonable?  But I couldn’t account for it.

Last night, lying in bed (because that’s where I’ve been all week anyway) I had a little light bulb moment.  (Will ideas come slower to this generation’s children because they’re being raised with those eco-light bulbs?)  I remember, vaguely, very vaguely, catching my ear on the hair straighteners either last Friday night or Saturday morning (I told you, my memory is a distant, hazy memory).  Can you see where this is going?

I’m missing a chunk (OK, see above) from my ear and the scab is yellow-ish not brown like as if I’d cut myself and I had thought that was unusual but I couldn’t remember why I know that there’s two colours of scabs (at least!).  Oh, and it’s itching like crazy.  But of course I didn’t think anything of it because my ears always itch and I can’t do anything about it.  But this is quite a specific itch, I’ve felt this itch before … Hmmm.

I don’t quite know how I’d manage to do myself quite so much damage with the straighteners; after all, my reaction times are usually pretty good.  And I know that I don’t even hold it very close a lot of the time because I worry about burning myself and I haven’t got that kind of patience and coordination.  But … There’s always that ‘but’ isn’t there?  I was trying to make an effort to look nice (AKA, mostly presentable) and I was tired.  I’m always tired at the moment.  I don’t think my reaction times, nor even my level of awareness, are quite what I think they are at the moment.  They’re definitely not likely to be anywhere near where they should be.

I may have burnt my ear (and maybe my head as well because there’s a very particular itch going on up there too), I may also be the person who left the gas on the other night … Yeah.  I don’t quite know how I descended to such levels of ineptitude but I don’t feel safe any more, I just don’t feel safe.  And feeling safe is such an important thing.  And you expect lots of outside things to take away your feeling of ‘safeness’ not yourself.  It’s such a horrible thing to lose, along with your memory, and I totally blame Mongrel Beast.  But even that doesn’t make me feel any better.

So, I don’t think I even made it into November this year.  Or maybe there’s worse yet to come.  Personally, I don’t even want to think about it and if you don’t mind, I’m off to have a nap.