Ibid

Spent Sunday morning in the E.R.  Same thing.  The E.R. is not a care center.  They treat the issue and get you out.  This time, they just gave her morphine as a shot in the arm.  Didn't have the same effect, so they gave her a shot of something else in the other arm.  Blood pressure stayed high.  The doctor was a smart ass and liked to ask gotcha questions.  He talked to me like I was a student who hadn't done his homework.  

"What's causing her blood pressure to be elevated?" he asked me in the smarmy tone of someone needing to be superior.  It didn't matter. 

"You want me to say pain."

"Right.  It's a shock to the system, so. . . . "

He gave her the option of going to a rehab hospital.  

"No.  I'm not going.  I have two friends who went and they said they'd never go back.  One of them got MERSA while she was there.  The other one wanted to leave it was so bad, but they wouldn't let her check herself out."

So. . . he gave her a prescription for a stronger pain med and said so long.  

She seems to be managing the pain so far.  

Me?  I'm not doing so well.  I think I am having panic attacks.  I feel very, very sick.  I'm weak and shaky and can't really focus my thoughts.  I wake in the night with horrible fear.  I can feel my body breaking down.  

But the number of things I need to do keeps mounting.  I absolutely have to paint the kitchen cubby today.  There is so much more that needs to be done around the house.  I am not the man for the job, however, and the bank account is shrinking rapidly.  

I never go for massages.  I've had maybe three in my life.  I think, though, that maybe a little human touch might help to settle me down.  I need to relax, that's certain, but I can't keep taking pills.  The cumulative effect is getting to be too much.  The same with whiskey.  I'm going to have to give it up.  

But the clock is winding down no matter.  

Sometimes music helps.