It’s time for a change. This thing I’ve got going on has gotten mean, and I feel the need to ridicule it into submission, without additional commentary or wise, wry observations on the nature of human existence. 

Things have taken a turn for the surreal lately. I dream cinematically when I can sleep, and I can still type but I can’t speak very well at best (and not at all at worst). I fall often, but my only injuries so far have largely been soft tissue (sprains, pulled muscles, bruises, and other assorted maladies) that show up well in the pain centers of my brain, but not well on x-rays or CAT scans. And most recently I couldn’t pee at all, so I now pee into a bag, constantly. So there’s that. I’m a study in contrasts. 

It’s actually a bit funny, if you’re inclined like I am to see humor in unlikely places. My most recent fall, for instance. We were spending the Christmas holidays in an AirBnB in Austin. Now, be advised that I wasn’t sneaking around late at night like I have been prone to do in the past. I had permission to have a cookie, and I am damn sure going to take advantage of that seldom-given go ahead. It was Christmas, after all.

I didn’t have much experience at walking with a cane (my chair didn’t fit through the doors in the AirBnB), in an unfamiliar environment, while carrying a catheter bag, late at night, when I was due a dose of medicine. I was thinking “COOKIE” like it was a heroin fix, and the thought drowned out all the other voices in my head counseling caution. Naturally, I fell. 

Typically, I fall backwards when I fall. I did this time, but I twisted to the side to avoid falling on my piss-bag and popping it open. I think I hit my neck on the counter in the kitchen, but I didn’t actually see how I fell. That treat was reserved for Amy, who had heard my bumbling passage through the kitchen and had come to ensure that her permission for “one cookie” hadn’t been translated by my dopamine-starved brain to “all the cookies, everywhere.” She found me on the floor in the kitchen clutching my neck and saying “owww”, but with a miraculously unpopped piss-bag. She was kind enough not to ask until later “what the hell were you doing?” and helped me to bed.

I ended up with a sprained neck and no lasting damage, but some truly impressive neck muscle spasms for a few days. I also ended up without a cookie for the night, so the mission was, as they say, a dismal failure.