Waiting

I'm sitting in the lab's waiting room, recovering from the most recent vampire attack.

It's always a bit of a circus. As I said to the lab tech, "I used to be a trauma nurse. What would be the fun of being an easy stick?"

This time, I had the joyful opportunity of having the first lab tech assess my veins and go find a better vampire without even poking me first. His hands were actually shaking by the time he left.

All I could do was laugh to myself. I used to have hosepipes for veins. They were still leathery, full of valves, and inclined to roll, but with a sharp needle and good technique, you could nail 'em with your eyes closed.

Now it takes 5 minutes with the warm pack (hot water in a blue glove) and the sharpest needler in the house. She got it in one.

In thematically related news... I've been essentially incommunicado since I moved into the new cabin. Internet is supposed to come tomorrow and AT&T has knocked $50 off my bill for not providing service yet and having terrible communication with me (losing notes, calling back the wrong week, trying to send me on wild goose chases) when they do get through.

Every effort to do anything other than nest -- carefully, gently, and in small controlled increments of effort -- seems to take 10 times the effort it should. Not two or three times. 10 times.

All I can do is laugh to myself... and, when necessary (such as when someone's looming over me with a sharp instrument and a purposeful expression), sitting firmly on my perpetually hair-triggered fight-or-flight response.

As I said to the same skillful lab tech, "I have good doctors, and I'm finally getting lab tests, PT and good care."

This is why I protect my mental faculties so vigilantly. They let me assess the real risk, the real effort, the real impact of the moment, so I can talk the CRPS-triggered responses down out of the sky.

And then wait for my system to recover.

I think I'm ready to go now.