So, on December 18th of 2022, infected tooth #29 (the right side “first Bicuspid”) needed to be extracted as my face was swelling like a very poorly filled sausage made by an over eager toddler. One VERY expensive emergency dentist visit later, I was sent home with the standard Amoxicillin prescription, and took that dutifully. Everything seemed ok until the 28th or so, which is when the Amoxicillin allowed Clostridium Difficile Toxin A/b to take root in my stomach. Cue some of the worst gastrointestinal pain of my life, with top pain levels tickling 9, which is where I start to pass out. So, I went to the urgent care center and got Vancomycin the day before yesterday, and now the pain is…livable? It’s a 6. Dizziness is a side effect, so THAT sucks. But the dental visit and the resultant urgent care visit (to cure with antibiotics the bug that the previous antibiotics left me vulnerable to, haha) hit my wallet HARD, even with insurance. So, I can truly say that this has literally been a very shitty way to start 2023.

Please forgive me if my poems and tweets and story excerpts are delayed in early February, thinking is hard when I’m this tired and ouch. Normally I have a solid 1 month buffer but these last few weeks were unproductive for reasons of illness. Also, I’m slowly losing twitter followers (Thanks elon,) so it should be noted that I am on Post News, and Mastodon, as well as Facebook. I don’t really post much to any place besides Facebook, but I am trying.

As always, I thank you and love you for your continued support, be it Patreon membership, PayPal, Venmo, or GoFundMe contributions. And even if it’s only sharing my work, or advocating on my behalf to your social circles, or even just saying hi, it all helps me so much.

Chi Miigwetch!
(Thank you!)

Originally posted in part on Twitter:

Thank you for helping me survive. I’m dealing with more pain. From the peripheral neuropathy and my spinal stenosis.

Without your help I would be much worse off. Thank you so much. Every little penny helps and so does every heart on these posts. It’s very difficult stuff, writing through the haze of agony.

It’s the second bad day in ten for me. I am in so much physical pain right now. Nihilist suicidalism is everywhere on my mind without my permission, because there’s teeth-clackingly high physical agony involved.

I must work harder better and faster when I lose more patrons in the monthly churn but it’s Herculean when there’s so much less capacity to work through it because of the pain just grinding my very sense of self down.

Tasks: Somehow, I must earn more money, and pay off this month's mortgage while being happy. And I have to ignore the screaming joints in my knees, feet, and back.

But really. there isn’t any hope for feeling better, not unless I win the Powerball and doctors get really cool about pain med prescriptions real fast. They won’t, and I won’t. So, I have to pretend an 8 on the pain scale is just a 3.

The pain comes in horizontal waves, first like tiny fish shimmering just under the lake’s surface in such quiet numbers that their hunt of insects is a muted sizzling sensation in the feet. Then comes the shaking foot. Restless leg syndrome. It always starts in the left foot. The pain spreads up my body by degrees, it’s pulsing, vibrating. Simmering.

Then comes the cold cramp aches in the left leg and foot. The muscle spasms, the deeply sharp chill that precedes the nerves randomly lighting themselves aflame like bolts of lightning zig zagging in blossoming flowers of misery pop shattering nerve pathways up and down my feet. At this point I’m usually whimpering from the pain in my legs. Definitely crying. Then, if I don’t have Neurotonin/gabapentin at all, the lightning becomes a constant feedback loop of nerves on fire. There are countless leg jerks from constant taser-zaps that spike above the pain storm’s levels. Then there is sometimes spinal stenosis-caused whole-body twitching. Lately it’s been throwing my eating habits out of whack. Feeling hungry but retching when I try to eat food

.
Bigger memory gaps from blacking out during sudden D.I.D. moments.

Ibuprofen and Acetaminophen are my only method of taking the edge off to get even two hours of sleep. And I have to take them in painfully large doses when I don’t have the gabapentin.

But even though it REALLY hurts, I’m still here. Still fighting. Because of you. Again, thank you for helping me survive.

thank you for being here tangibly

and thank you for leaving comments
they make me feel less lost in the dark loneliness.

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