Off to a Strange Start

So I'm currently headed to work with a 99° temperature....and I wish I could say this was the first time I've gone to work with a fever in the *month* in which I've been working in New York.....but it's not. I think this is the third time I've been sick.... though I can't say for certain because the phlegm tends to run together.  Or rather clump together...grossly.

And I want to work, I don't want to spend the day in bed; I just don't want to be sick. But when I live and work in a Petri dish of germs and take a medicine everyday that kills my white blood cells... well I guess we could say I'm the viruses' ideal woman.

Sooooo I'm in a feverish haze as I head to work. I sat on the floor of the subway this morning, not really feeling like explaining how my body works to complete strangers. The other day a woman asked if I'd give up my seat and I said "I have arthritis so I'm not the best person to ask."  And I didn't look for her reaction, but the idea of her judging me or thinking I'm lying because like everything I have going on in my body, you can't *see* that I'm sick....eh it's just my own personal nightmare.

So I sat on the floor. A few stops in, a woman ended up offering her seat, cleverly and kindly doing it just before the subway stop where previously paralyzed doors planed to open up and consume me.

And it was cute. She dropped her newspaper, I dropped a "we missed you" post office slip, neither of us noticing our own clumsiness and instead meeting in a squat as we both bent down to pick up the others' fallen leaf.

In the mind of a great circus man, he'd think that we shared a "spectacular dance."

So I plan on jitterbugging and hopscotching through this feverish day, hoping to one day have the immunity of Hygieia.

You Call Me Sick

You think I'm sick?  You know what I am. I'm sick of this year. 

Of losing best friend after friend after friend. 

I complained that I wanted a hand to hold when I weep. 

Now I wish just for someone that I can text.

Everyone that got close to me is gone. 

The love I had for them is calcifying inside of me like; making my heart hard and cold. 

I just wanted to love unconditionally. I don't know how to get over losing so many people in so short a time. 

And the stragglers that are left, I fear infecting.  

Perhaps I am my disease. Not Crohn's or arthritis or asthma or hypoglycemia. 

It's me. 

I am the disturbing one petrifying those who come near.  A Medusa who just wants a hold someone; now too afraid to love anyone new or to chase after the loves I still need. 

It feels like drowning. 

Today once again the cycle began. 

Someone figuratively slapped my wrist for sitting when I needed to. 

Silly me. My brain clearly only functions at standing night.  And because I responded "well I need to do this," HR is now involved. 

They say they're here to help but with the Olympic hurtle track they put between me and working without feeling like an outsider, it feels more like they're trying to discourage me from trying at all. Unless I can get a gold metal in humiliation and tenacity, while not getting paid and eating instant potatoes as my only meal --only then am I allowed to do what my body needs without having to feel fear or shame. 

And the battle never ends. I thought I won this twice before but here they are again, setting he hurtles in front of me. Again the healthy ones with their misplaced concern decide for me that I am sick.

They want me at 100% and ignore my whispers that I never am. Ignore me pleas that I need this to survive. Ignore my tears, my feelings, and my pain: because their voice is louder than mine. 

They don't understand yet they decide what I can't do. I can't sit and still do my job, they say (ignoring the fact that sitting hasn't impaired me from shining at what I do). No, I can't sit.  But if I hurtle my way to the paperwork at the end of the course, suddenly it isn't an issue!  So sitting without a piece of paper: Too sick to function!  Sitting with a piece of paper: Call me Heather Normalton.

It's a flawed system and I'm sick of it.  If I need to sit and it isn't causing problems, let me be. Don't pretend you understand how difficult my life is. Don't even try. Those who do become petrified or flee.

It's a lonely existence. 

And you're right that I'm sick: sick of everything being this hard.