Stick and Poke

When I was diagnosed with my autoimmune disease, it wasn’t much of a surprise. I was forever sick. Like, my earliest memories lead me to hospital waiting rooms. Ear infections, colds, broken bones, cuts and scrapes - it wasn’t anything new. My mother wept loudly, dramatically, and it was expected. The whole ordeal really was more of a “Welp, this might as well had happened today”. I don’t think about it much day to day, except for the times I do. Like the days I wake up with a blinding migraine, or my joints killing me when I get out of bed. The usual stuff that makes me realise that I’m not normal.

Some days it feels like my muscles are starving. I stretch luxuriously as if it’s first thing in the morning, but all throughout the day. I feel like a piece of tin foil some days, crumpled up that I try to smooth to perfection, but you can still see the lines. It’s never quite tabula rasa, but for now, it’ll do.

Believe it or not, it wasn’t being told that I have a condition with no cure that was traumatic to me. It was the treatment – one needle entering my vein for three hours at a time, every two months. Ridiculous, right? But needles make me squeamish. Like, I can watch a full reality television show about surgical nightmares while eating a rare steak and never bat an eye, but there’s something about needles that really gets me. I think it’s the disappearing act of it all. This foreign body passes through your skin and takes up residence for a fraction of time and leaves your body as if nothing happened.

I have really bad veins. By genetics. A doctor once told my father that he has snakeskin - his veins disappeared from the surface of his skin. I don’t actually know if that’s a real attribute that snakes have, but I can tell you that I sure as shit inherited that. It takes sometimes multiple tries at multiple sites, with multiple professionals before it’s finally set where it’s supposed to be. I spend that time clenching my eyes shut and preparing myself for the bite of the needle and the sting of the rubbing alcohol.

Today is a particular shade of unease. It feels like there’s so much kinetic energy running through me, but not a damn thing to be done. That is entirely untrue. The list of shit to do is unending and completely unnerving to look at. I’m sitting here, in an overstuffed chair, a needle in my arm and I’m googling why my spell check isn’t working in my browser. Realistically, I should be here plotting my next big project, but instead, I’m here, preoccupied with shit that doesn’t even matter.

The clinic today is filled with nerdy dudes, wearing glasses, with shitty immune diseases. It’s strange the ambiance of this place. We all size each other up when we come here. All of us about the same age with zero intention of talking to one another because it just bums us out. We sit silently, watching Netflix on patchy wi-fi and try to get through the appointment.  

I feel like a solar panel. The skylight in the clinic bathes me in sun and I’m soaking up the first real sun rays of the season. It’s warm today. Well, warm after a long winter. For the last few weeks, my one main prayer became for a day where I didn’t have to commit to a parka. And while today, I find myself cloaked in my long coat, I wear it open as I let the breeze play with my sweater. I find it really funny that on treatment days, I have to determine my wardrobe by how easily my sleeves can roll up past my elbows. It’s a peculiar way to determine your outfit. Just this morning, I realized that I have an entire selection of shapeless, soft, sweaters that hang off my body. Concealing what will definitely become a bloated belly and sore muscles. Swaddling myself in some sort of comfort is really the only way I get through these days sometimes. And it’s not just me. Some people come armed with blankets, scarves, cushions, stuffed animals.

I try to sleep. I never get the chance to sleep on my own time, so here, it seems fitting. I close my eyes, stick a podcast in my ears and shut down. I’m warm in the sun. I can feel it on my face when I recline in the chair. When they push my pain meds, I loosen in my seat, close my computer and let my brain go blank until I come to.