Eight Weeks
I live my life in eight week intervals. Every two months a visit to the hospital brings infusions. Into my veins I allow these drugs to creep. The supposed antidote seeps into my mixed up body, where up is sideways and down is dead. Dripping from bags of fluid and mind numbingly expensive pharmaceuticals. The blind prick of a needle threads a slender tube into the crook of my arm. I watch the wall as the nurses make small talk as if these chemicals were Kool-Aid.
Everything is a continuous stand-off, winner takes all. Insurance companies hinder my health, not help. Doctors offices make mistakes. Labs get mixed up. Infection explores the crevices and pores of my body. A symptom turns to a drug remedy that produces side effects, which in turn leads to different drugs and new symptoms. My body beats itself in circles simply out of spite. Everyday is a fight for all of the coveted that will inevitably disappear. Health and happiness, love and life are the four fleeting pillars of everyone's dreams.
I am defeated on the days when I remember how my life was before my diagnosis. I want to go back to the time before my insides turned as sour as my mind. Back to when I just thought I had it bad instead of knowing it for certain. Crohn's Disease, the first ailment, my diamond disease, requires a compromised immunity opening the door to voracious viruses vying to vault my viability. The cure breeds disease number two, Psoriasis.
A simple strep infection drags the second from it's slumber, to dance on my skin with a burning thunder. My flesh succumbs to searing autoimmune polka dots. I am illness personified. Every step I take is backwards, any forward movement is from stumbling and falling. Unhealthy is the new and improved me. While my body rots, my mind stays sharp enough to cut these irrational thoughts. My brain is a guillotine for my insanity. The irony is irritating. This body and brain have never been on the same page.
My schedule revolves around eight week sessions. Two months that break me down. Remicade, this juice from a mouse, makes me more like a rat. I gnaw away at the Blue Cross insurance monster and pharmaceutical companies cures and placebos. Sniff the pungent stench of unaffordable dreams of health and heroes. At what point is it okay to give in? When my children are grown I can rest, until then my body will have to contend with a mind that wants to devour its detrimental drug determined disease.
Everything is a continuous stand-off, winner takes all. Insurance companies hinder my health, not help. Doctors offices make mistakes. Labs get mixed up. Infection explores the crevices and pores of my body. A symptom turns to a drug remedy that produces side effects, which in turn leads to different drugs and new symptoms. My body beats itself in circles simply out of spite. Everyday is a fight for all of the coveted that will inevitably disappear. Health and happiness, love and life are the four fleeting pillars of everyone's dreams.
I am defeated on the days when I remember how my life was before my diagnosis. I want to go back to the time before my insides turned as sour as my mind. Back to when I just thought I had it bad instead of knowing it for certain. Crohn's Disease, the first ailment, my diamond disease, requires a compromised immunity opening the door to voracious viruses vying to vault my viability. The cure breeds disease number two, Psoriasis.
A simple strep infection drags the second from it's slumber, to dance on my skin with a burning thunder. My flesh succumbs to searing autoimmune polka dots. I am illness personified. Every step I take is backwards, any forward movement is from stumbling and falling. Unhealthy is the new and improved me. While my body rots, my mind stays sharp enough to cut these irrational thoughts. My brain is a guillotine for my insanity. The irony is irritating. This body and brain have never been on the same page.
My schedule revolves around eight week sessions. Two months that break me down. Remicade, this juice from a mouse, makes me more like a rat. I gnaw away at the Blue Cross insurance monster and pharmaceutical companies cures and placebos. Sniff the pungent stench of unaffordable dreams of health and heroes. At what point is it okay to give in? When my children are grown I can rest, until then my body will have to contend with a mind that wants to devour its detrimental drug determined disease.
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