Monday, March 2, 2009

What I should have said was nothing

Today I saw my psychiatrist, who handles sertraline and clonazapam portion of my medications. She's a great doctor, and I quite like her. Unfortunately, she's not Lyme-literate, but she is (vaguely) receptive to my treatment protocol. Today I gave her a copy of the ILADS treatment guidelines, and hopefully that will help her understand that my LLMD has very good reasons for what he's prescribing me.

Anyway, she was asking how I'm handling the illness and that sort of thing, and one idea led to another and I oh-so-casually mentioned that part of my change in attitude was due to an amazing conversation I had with a cat. (I should write this up someday, but the quick distillation of what he shared with me was that each second, each moment, even if not ideal, even while struggling and in pain, has value and should be fully appreciated and lived.)

Now, take a step back. I've just told my psychiatrist that I'm talking to cats. Which brings me to the title of this post...what I should have said was nothing. (With props to Mike Birbiglia, from whom I stole that line.) So I had to explain about talking to animals. Luckily, she didn't send me off to the psych ward, but I think there was a hint of a raised eyebrow. To be expected, obviously. I know I've done it, and I still think it sounds crazy.

So that's how I started my day. Later, I tripped over an unseen metal bar. Gravity took over and I ended up with a rip in the knee of my favorite jeans, a skinned and very bruised knee, and a giant goose egg of a bruise on my ankle (the one that hit the bar). The tragedy in all of this is not that I was bruised and bleeding, but that I damaged my favorite jeans. Because I currently possess only two pairs of jeans, and now my favorite is torn. Not unwearable, but still.

I wish I could blame the trip-and-fall on Lyme somehow--poor motor skills or something--but this is the sort of thing I've been doing my entire life. So at least some things never change!

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