my laugh woke me up

7/3/23

I don’t feel like I’m fully here. Like I feel like I’m half in this life and half not. It’s because of the pain.

i just want it to not hurt when someone touches me. especially my baby, he is so sweet, and i hate recoiling from him. i hate it.

7/4/23

Hunter’s whole body breaking out in rashes this week (actually though, i saw the beginnings of it starting the week before this): hands, arms, feet, legs, torso. the rashes are raised red patches that are itchy and his skin is drier than normal all over. and although there’s one that briefly sporadically comes and goes around his mouth, his face is thankfully spared. Trying to keep him from overheating in this hot weather, moisturizing his skin more (also ordered lotions that have MSM in them from Amazon to see if that helps), rosemary hydrosol spray, mineral water with splash of ACV spray, giving vitamin supplements, playing with him more and trying to be extra gentle and loving and attentive. mom cooking a lot of chicken soup for him.

i’m doing pretty bad too- similarly having worst skin ive had in a long time. been on the birth control five days so far (birth ctrl not the cause- skin bad for the past year) – gonna give it at least the 21 days (if not more) to make sure it does/doesn’t work. the doc did say it could take up to three months before it “fully takes over” my cycle though – should I wait that long?

7/5/23

ever since having baby, i realize regularly: i don’t have as much patience as i thought i had. I’m not as good as I thought I was. He tests everything – pushes us to all our limits. He just did a bunch of rapid-fire, stressful things in a row in a span of about 3 minutes: threw his food on the floor, then turned the full bowl upside down on purpose, then knocked over granny’s coconut water so that it soaked the dining chair and everywhere, stepped on my bad foot, and when he did the last thing while i was trying to clean everything up- he picked up a click pen that had the writing end exposed and was waving it in the air shouting, “i want to draw i want to drawww!!!” – i just, at the end of my patience in the moment and without any gentleness or regard for his delicate baby hands, ripped the pen straight up out of his grip with all my grown-up strength. No apparent harm done, but still, when i realized later how i acted without much physical concern for him at all, i was ashamed. And also a little scared realizing just how easy it is to physically cross the line with a baby, if you’re not careful. I consider myself a pretty careful person, and have felt right up at the boundary of crossing the line many times since he was born. i feel like i should have been made to pass tests and get licenses before having a baby. I can’t believe babies are entrusted to just anyone – anyone. You birth a precious, innocent new life, you take them home while the hospital staff wave bye-bye, and you’re on your own from there.

I get a little excited every day before I take my pill. Like a few hours before, I start counting down to 5 o’clock, which is the time I take it every day. I just want another dose and another of whatever will heal me. I just want to get closer and closer to the day when this is all over and the pain is gone. I want to fully live, i want to feel normal again. I want to shower without pain or dread. I want to wear appropriate summer clothes – it’s so hot out now.

still getting the recurring thought if I should use steroids. Have a kids birthday party to attend on Saturday, and don’t know if I should go with my feet/skin so bad like this. Don’t want any pity looks/vibes from ppl, don’t want to spend hours feeling insecure/fighting insecurity.

kind of made up my mind: if feet not getting better by the 21st day of taking birth control pills, I’ll use the steroid cream, because I don’t think I can take it for much longer mentally and emotionally. I’ll just use it on my feet, which is like the furthest away from internal organs you can get, and I will use the least bit possible needed for healing. but I just wanna give these pills a chance- if I do steroids now, i won’t know if the pills had an effect or not. I put a reminder in my phone, so i can count down and have relief to look forward to. just a little longer. hold on. you’ve endured months straight before- you can do it for 2 more weeks.

7/6/23

mid-flareup at 2:44 am, what I think of:

 anyone who’s ever died

curled up under repeated blows

just trying to protect themselves.

7/7/23

yesterday late afternoon, felt tired and laid down for a quick nap, and as I descended further and further into unconsciousness, I started having this dream that my laugh woke me up from. I think it was just an Elaine-from-Seinfeld-type woman who for some reason, could not stop Broadway-smiling while singing parts of her sentences whenever she talked to/answered people. Like it was a physical tic she couldn’t help – serious business-people were asking if she would please stop singing her answers, and she singsonged back that she couldn’t. After a bit of dreaming this, I actually woke up laughing out loud. Smiled as i fell back asleep. I was surprised at the sound of my laugh- i hadn’t heard it in a long time. and i was pleased that…even though sickness consumes my body, my mind is not so easily consumed.