# Excuses, Escuses...

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Posted by COMF [COMF] on October 27, 1999 at 21:43:14 {dPkPwxsNJE8btmTRbiCQoRa3VCcycQ}:

It's not an excuse, but it is the reason.

A quick summary for those who haven't already heard it over and over:

I got Hepatitis C from an emergency surgery blood transfusion after I was in a car wreck in 1994 (note: I turned down the blood... they just did it anyway, and undoubtedly saved my life in so doing). We only discovered the HepC this past summer, when I donated blood and their tests revealed it. Since about June or so, I'm taking a combination therapy for HepC called Rebetron; this consists of Ribivirin and Rebetrol, the two most effective treatments for HepC. Rebetrol is an injection I give myself three times a week. The side effect of the shot, over the next six to eight hours, is general flu-like symptoms: sore muscles and joints, fever, chills, and severe headache. I get up the next morning and go to work anyway; I have no choice. There's nothing much to be done about these side effects, except take some aspirin and wait it out. The long-range side effect of the treatment is anemia: tiredness, lethargy, no matter how much rest I get. The timespan of this therapy is one year minimum; possibly 1 1/2 years.

Back in February, I developed the first case of allergies I have ever had. Folks who have dealt with allergies all their lives, observing my symptoms, have told me they never had anything this severe. I have been coughing pretty much nonstop since February. I've been to a family physician who xrayed me and exhausted his resources with no success; a respiritory specialist, who put me in day surgery and stuck a camera down my throat and into my lungs, looking for the source of the problem; and finally to an allergist, where they determined that I have a raging allergy to cedar trees, mesquite trees, cats, and dust mites... all four of which blanket the central Texas area where I live.

They started me on allergy injections. I give myself these shots twice a week in increasing dosages. The side effect is a temporary increase in my symptoms, particularly the coughing; heat, redness and pain where the injection was given; and, so far, nothing else (in other words, it hasn't yet impacted my preexisting allergy symptoms).

So I'm injecting poisons into my body five days a week in an effort to regain my health. I'm taking pills like they're popcorn. Although the Rebetron is sapping my energy and making me anemic, I spend the majority of my nights wracked with violent fits of coughing, sleeping maybe a total of three hours or so. The effects of all this are cumulative, and it's really beginning to show.

I can't sleep long enough to get my strength back, because the allergies won't let me. On nights when I take the Rebetron shots, usually I wake up in the middle of the night aching all over with flu-like pain, and go to the bathroom, where I fill the tub with hot water and lie soaking in it for a half-hour or so, until my joints and muscles have calmed down enough for me to try sleeping again. Usually at this point, the transition from heat to cool sets off another violent coughing fit that may last another half-hour or so.

Last night (Wednesday), I got no sleep at all. I had slept for only 2 1/2 hours the night before. I made two different trips to the bathroom to soak in the hot water, trying to alleviate the pain in my muscles. Each time, before I went back to bed, I came and got on the computer and posted messages on H2O.

I am seething with barely-repressed rage. My mind and body are both screaming for relief; but there isn't any relief to be had, unless the allergy shots start to do some good. There's this anger in me over what's happening to my body; over the eternal pain; over my own powerlessness in the face of these things happening to me. I sometimes feel the need to explode outward, pushing everyone and everything away from me, just to get a little space, a little respite from it all.

This rage, this fury at the lack of control I have over these things, is escaping out of me in my posts. I try to speak normally, but everything is written "through gnashed teeth," as it were. Things that are supposed to come out as being simple observations take on a tone of confrontation and condemnation.

At first I didn't realize this was happening. Nickie pointed it out to me this morning, when she read what I had posted during the night. ros also said that I don't sound like myself. I've gotten LostAgain to dancing in front of me, shadowboxing; and even buddies like Gedanken are looking askance at me.

Sorry, everybody. You know, if you've read my posts over the years, that my big thing is being "captain of my fate" in the sense of controlling my emotions, taking responsiblity for my actions, and not expecting anything from anybody else. Well, I've hit up on something that's challenging me in that regard, taking all my resources to fight. I've dealt with emotional abuse, family loss, dispair, alcoholism, and depression; but I've never had to face such an onslaught of ever-present physical pain like this before. It's clear that I'm not handling it well.

Until I can get a grip and keep a civil tongue in my head, I'm going to back off on posting so much. I'm not leaving; but I'm going to cut back on the frequency. My request to you is to call me on it when I start getting ugly again. I may be belligerent immediately upon seeing what you say, but I promise that the words will sink in.

I apologize for my needlessly aggressive words to you the past couple of days; really, it goes back a few months, but yesterday was like a culmination of it all; a simmering liquid that finally boiled over.

I do not believe in offering apologies accompanied by excuses and whining. It's only a real apology if it's presented by itself. And so my apology is intended to be. There is no excuse. I presented this description of what's happening to me in an effort to convey that it isn't simply something out of my personality and thinking alone that gave voice to those angry words on the board. That's not supposed to make it okay.

As I said above: it's not an excuse... but it is the reason.

I'm sorry.

COMF

Follow Ups:

- *Excuses, Escuses... COMF to all 18:23:10 10/28/99 (2)
  - **Excuses, Escuses... a.j.w. 04:58:52 10/29/99 (0)
  - **Excuses, Escuses... ANDY 20:20:57 10/28/99 (0)
- *Excuses, Escuses... WW 17:04:32 10/28/99 (0)
- *Excuses, Escuses... Moddy102 16:50:12 10/28/99 (0)
- *Excuses, Escuses... Cygnus 15:17:45 10/28/99 (0)
- *Excuses, Escuses... Sunspot 13:40:11 10/28/99 (0)
- *Excuses, Escuses... John W Wirtanen 11:28:55 10/28/99 (0)
- *Excuses, Escuses... LostAgain 10:09:54 10/28/99 (1)
  - **Excuses, Escuses... Farkel 11:02:06 10/28/99 (0)
- *Excuses, Escuses... Snowball 09:06:36 10/28/99 (0)
- *Excuses, Escuses... ros 08:41:34 10/28/99 (0)
- *Excuses, Escuses... 5GJW 08:32:53 10/28/99 (0)
- *Excuses, Escuses... maranata 08:00:10 10/28/99 (0)
- *Excuses, Escuses... Alan 06:51:18 10/28/99 (11)
  - **Excuses, Escuses... IBelieve 16:51:07 10/28/99 (0)
  - **Excuses, Escuses... 5GJW 08:53:44 10/28/99 (5)
    - ***Excuses, Escuses... Sunspot 13:29:42 10/28/99 (0)
    - ***Excuses, Escuses... Antique 09:27:05 10/28/99 (0)
    - ***Excuses, Escuses... Alan 09:18:28 10/28/99 (2)
      - ****Excuses, Escuses... IBelieve 16:52:31 10/28/99 (0)
      - ****Excuses, Escuses... 5GJW 09:34:50 10/28/99 (0)
  - **Excuses, Escuses... ros 08:36:27 10/28/99 (3)
    - ***Excuses, Escuses... Alan 09:19:44 10/28/99 (2)
      - ****Excuses, Escuses... ANDY 20:24:42 10/28/99 (0)
      - ****Excuses, Escuses... IBelieve 16:53:51 10/28/99 (0)
- *Excuses, Escuses... Friend 06:44:13 10/28/99 (1)
  - **Excuses, Escuses... Gedanken 07:15:51 10/28/99 (0)
- *Excuses, Escuses... barJonah 06:35:02 10/28/99 (0)
- *Excuses, Escuses... Al; 06:15:47 10/28/99 (0)
- *Excuses, Escuses... Antique 06:07:30 10/28/99 (0)
- *Excuses, Escuses... Sue 05:35:37 10/28/99 (0)
- *Excuses, Escuses... rollsroyce 05:07:43 10/28/99 (0)
- *Excuses, Escuses... kc 04:52:28 10/28/99 (0)
- *Excuses, Escuses... Reen 02:24:31 10/28/99 (0)
- *Excuses, Escuses... notbraindead 01:56:32 10/28/99 (0)
- *Excuses, Escuses... Bibleman 23:37:41 10/27/99 (0)

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