still sick but hopefully on the mend

Still sick, but hopefully on the mend. The last two days I have only coughed up the nasty bloody crap first thing in the morning. I had started coughing it up last week, sometimes several times daily. I know it sounds disgusting, but I was able to breathe for an hour or so after coughing up several large chunks, and breathing is a very good thing! I still cannot talk; my knee hurts like heck from physical therapy this morning, but the therapist said it is the best she has seen it (probably from the four days of bed rest) so they did not have to do the odd thing running the electrical current through the muscles - they were able to start me on strength training today.

We did not go to the play on Sunday; I told Dan that if I was OK to go to the grocery store that morning, I would go to the play that afternoon. Going to the grocery store made me feel dizzy and weak like I was in serious danger of passing out cold; I came home and slept next to Dan for several hours rather than going to the play.

I will try to go to work tonight. It is only a three night work week, thanks to the long weekend. I can certainly try to go in to work, knowing it will only be three nights!

I hate having fevers; one of the nights I was running a high fever a little voice said to me:

Tonight is the turning point. You are getting a secondary infection and your body is trying to decide whether to keep fighting or whether to let you finally rest.

Why does crap like that always happen in the middle of the night when no one else is awake or around?

I thought long and hard about my life. I remembered horrible things that people have done to me - giving pain with no regret or remorse. Some people are just crap sometimes! My mother - who emotionally, physically, and sexually abused me. Mr Grinch, who I had thought was a friend while he was using me and thought me worthless. I realized that it is possible for one person to hurt another one so much emotionally that it can literally kill them. I thought of possibly never being able to be completely pain free again, or move freely and easily because of the messed up knee. I thought of the winter's cold, and how cruel and cold people can be to each other - monsters in the form of men and women.

Then I thought of beauty - the Grand Canyon at sunrise. True friends like Danlo and Fisty, my heart brothers. Friends I get to see much more often than those two, my sisters. My dear friend John out in Vegas. Dan, holding me and snuggling with me whenever he can. Watching the fishing boats come into harbor in the evening off the sea cliffs in Maine. And my children, how young Steven still is. How much I would like to see him graduate from high school, and how much I would like to see Bill graduate from the university. Love. Beauty. Joy.

Versus ugliness, cruelty, pain.

In the middle of the night - alone - hurt, sick, afraid.

I chose my children, my friends - that even with the cruelty and pain that love and beauty are worth sticking around.

And the little voice said

Let it be so.

And in the morning I got up, put my head in a steam tent and forced myself to cough up all sorts of bloody goo, then forced myself to eat the first real meal I had eaten in days.