Day Nineteen: Dearest Gray

18 October 2014

Saturday

Dearest Gray,

As you know, today hasn't been the easiest of days for me and that what I'm feeling as I type this and try not to cry (not that I don't feel that I can, I just don't want to have to stop now that I've finally started to get a tissue from the bathroom and wipe my nose) is the weight of all of this that I've been writing about of late. These memories that I've been sharing with the world have been even more sharply in my dreams the last several days which, as you also know, has caused you to waken me from nightmares. I told you today that I don't want to continue this writing of this. It hurts so much and I've cried so many tears over it. I told you too that I was starting to feel something akin to hope, only to have it smashed to bits this afternoon and evening. That is the way of this disease though and why I have learned that it is an exercise in frustration and pain to tell myself that I might be getting better or that things might be changing in some way because there is something about saying it aloud (or writing it) that seems to signal an ill wind to come and knock me back down into the darkness again. Two steps forward, two steps back again. Maybe not a whole two steps back, but enough that whatever infinitesimal amount of progress I am making is so miniscule as to be completely unrecognizable to my senses. All that said, my darling, you have encouraged me and lent me your strength and I am trying. As I said, today, I am writing this for you.

Day Seventeen (part 1): Early Morning Blurred Lines

My unconscious mind is roused by a voice calling my name, but I can't put a face to it. "Therese? Therese?...." I am still somewhere betwixt dreams and wakefulness and the heavy sort of confusion of that state clouds my senses. "Therese? Therese, wake up. Wake up, Therese." The voice is insistent and somewhere in my half awake brain, I realise that whoever it belongs to must know me, so I roll over in the bed and automatically reach to turn my CPAP off. My hand grapples with empty air beside the bed and suddenly, a realization hits me. I am not at home. Oh God, it wasn't a dream. Despite my inability to see anything clearly without my glasses, I suddenly know exactly where I am. The voice says, "Therese, you need to go down to the nurse's station for a blood draw." I bristle. My CPAP continues to hum quietly and whoosh with each breath I take. The person belonging to that voice is standing in the doorway of my room and although she is less than ten feet away, I cannot tell that she is a she except for the pitch of her voice. Apparently satisfied that I am awake enough to have heard her message, she disappears. I am not getting out of this bed to go give them any of my blood. Too fucking bad. I lay back down and turn over on the hard foam mattress and refold the thin pillow beneath my head, hearing it crinkle as I lay my head down. I pull the thin waffle weave blanket over my head, close my eyes, and go back to sleep.