strained relations

Ohhhhhh. So this is bone pain. Ah.

I buckled around 5:00 this afternoon and popped an oxycontin. I had hoped to avoid it, and tried to make peace with my bones through a Tylenol-negotiated detente. But the relations with the pain were already too strained. Here I sit, listing slightly to one side, with no regrets about having surrendered in order to gain peace.

It was hard to tell when to intervene. Yani and I went to Quaker meeting this morning, and if there was anyone in there without bone pain by the end of an hour on those benches, I'd like to shake their hand. The pain crept in slowly from there, and then suddenly by late afternoon it had Arrived, and was tugging on my sleeve and kicking my ass, too.

Laura tried to help by transforming the kitchen table into a massage table. She dragged down an old camping mattress from the attic for cush. Massage didn't help with the pain, but I appreciated the gesture and the novelty of a bed in the middle of the kitchen. While Ting made us Chinese pancakes and asparagus, I lay on the kitchen bed and waited for the oxycontin to do its thing.

I am sad to report that I could not taste Ting's delicate Chinese pancakes, nor the perfectly cooked asparagus. At this point in my treatment, taste is like eating in a dream: taste is a concept, not an experience.

I was shocked this afternoon to see that my hands had turned an unsettling shade of dark blue. It looked like I wasn't getting any oxygen at all, the skin nearly as dark as the veins underneath. Imagine my relief when I washed them and a deep blue tint colored the sink. I need to rewash my new jeans, or else keep my hands out of the pockets.