the end of my blog

Antibiotics did nothing. One goddamn thing after another. I fucking give up.

Dragged kicking and screaming like a toddler, my aunt brought me to an urgent care walk-in place. An ER-lite? I hate hate trying to navigate the medical industry. They scare the hell out of me. I thought they might do some painful poking and prodding, maybe even some puncturing.. 

This guy I just met wants to flay open my thumb, right there, right now. He says it's an abscess, and antibiotics don't work, with all that pus trapped in there. Because the nailbed is a little complicated, he can't just drain it with a needle. He has to reenact a scene from Game of Thrones to clean it out. Then he just tapes it up and sends me home. Not a problem of antibiotic resistance after all, he gave me more of the same stuff. 

If not for my aunt, I think I may have just let the staph have me. Let it fight it out with the cancer. I'm tired. Getting more aggressive medical attention was even worse than I'd imagined, but I'm glad it's done. Hopefully it works.

infected

I haven't been getting to class all week. I tried on Monday, but went home early. I have an infection in my thumb. More severe than the typical infected cuticle I'm familiar with, it kept getting worse instead of better. My immune system didn't seem to be handling it. A concerning patch of green had begun to form under the skin. To cut to the point, it's much better after a few days worth of measures were taken, but in a grey area, as far as whether I should go back to class, just yet. 

I'm sure some would. I'm not sure they'd be right, but it also feels like it's one thing after another with me. Is this just getting older or something else? I have enough trouble with getting out the door as it is. The added indecision is too much. I err on the side of fuck it, I'm going back to bed. I used to pride myself on never getting sick or injured, but turns out that was mostly just because I never left the house.

Maybe I should be ok with this. I'm still doing great by some measures, but I just collapse. It feels like I'm failing. The pain of recent years has been too much, always facing it all alone, my coping strategies are undermined left and right. I'm trying to be optimistic and ambitious, as I struggle to make my last stand against the waves crashing down on me.

It's the end of the world, because I have an infected cuticle. I have a doctor appointment on Tuesday. My white cell count, etc came back low again. Not dangerously low, but could it be why I'm feeling crappy and failing to fight off an infection? In any case, maybe I should ask about getting back on sertraline, too.

shirtless

Years ago, I was hanging out with a group from the dojang. One of the few times I ever did, beyond the socially structured safety of the Minneapolis Academy of Hwa Rang Do. I don't remember the context that provided the comedic timing, but I remember that everyone laughed. "How do you know I don't use steroids?" I quipped.

Jason made a motion as if to close his thumb and forefinger around my bicep. I gave the green light to joke about it, but yeah. It was comically obvious that I didn't use steroids. Despite sweating my ass off year after year, it appeared I didn't even work out. It wasn't even clear that I ate regularly. My body doesn't produce growth hormone. It's difficult growing muscles without it. 

Bones, skin, cardio too, but muscular development can be the most apparent. Something we might become more psychologically fixated on, for obvious reasons. Just before the pandemic, after a tough class, a training partner made a comment that I was looking "swole." I'm pretty sure it wasn't even sarcasm. I'd never gotten a compliment like that before.

I get random compliments occasionally, now. About this aspect of myself that I was so insecure about my entire life. The compliments help a lot. That first compliment, that external acknowledgment of my progress, helped significantly in taking that initial leap into working out every day, when the pandemic hit. Confidence in the ability to progress can be an important part of motivation.

I struggle to put this into the context of being 47, but at least it's something to feel good about. I have pecs and abs like the comic book heroes I used to draw when I was a kid. At 47. I don't care if it's tacky. Jason died in a car accident a few years ago. He was a good person. Exceptionally so. Life is brutal, yet we can't help but worry about the dumbest shit.

life priorities

I used to wear a sweatshirt with this design printed on it. Somewhat tongue in cheek, but I essentially believed it. Nothing really matters. Just enjoy what you can, while you can. Now, I'd be ashamed to wear it. My grappling dummy wears it instead.

I don't exactly disagree, though. It's misguided, but I still don't think anything matters, per se. Objectively speaking. Does this mean I'm ok with being miserable? Happy, sad, whatever? Well, no. Being miserable is our brain's way of telling us we're not ok. Philosophical objectivity aside, being miserable sucks. It's miserable. Whether or not it matters doesn't matter. Our health is important to us, as wheels and engine are important to a car. Mentally and physically, we might sustain damage or heal, thrive or break down. Our thoughts and feelings are only manifestations of that. We have feelings instead of dashboard lights. 

Hedonism can be so ignorant as to what makes life enjoyable. Turns out, it's so much more complicated than just doing what we feel like doing. If the secret of life is a good cup of coffee, there's a lot that goes into being able to appreciate that cup of coffee. It's a luxury to be able to enjoy smoking pot, playing video games, or eating. 

Even as a priority, we squander that, if we squander our mental and physical health. We won't enjoy any of it, if we don't take care of ourselves. Life being so terribly unfair, where we're starting from varies widely. We may have lots of damage to repair, lots of work to do, before feeling good is even possible. Others just have to avoid screwing it up too badly. 

When we're in pain, relieving that pain can be the closest thing we know to feeling good. It can seem important, even. Addictive behaviour tends to occur when we do these things not to truly enjoy them, so much as to be distracted, relieved of pain. If that's the best we find possible, while everything else brings pain, it doesn't seem like such a bad calculation to indulge way too often.

This is in the short term, with no guarantee anything will work out any better in the long run. I've found that a lot of things do work though. A little, gradually over time, and all together, it adds up to being clearly worth more than all these things that can be momentarily enjoyable, all too easily overindulged in, to the neglect of everything else. In time, none of it is even enjoyable anymore, so much as mindnumbing escape.

We're still talking about taking painkillers away from people who tend to need them. It's hard. What works for me may be unnecessary for others. I don't know what's going on in anyone else's head. I'm not going to say that everyone needs to exercise the way I do. Not to mention eating. I'm an intermittent fasting vegan, but I do it so that I can enjoy eating at all. One more piece of this whole strategy for being I'm working on.