Suspicious Minds

This has been a weekend of tidying up. Christmas has been banished to the basement for another eleven months of solitary confinement. Toilet bowels have been scrubbed. Kitchen accoutrements have been steel-wooled and degreased. Sofas have been curried free of lint, cat hair, and stuff I don’t want to consider too closely. I washed windows in the living room and dining room. I extracted as much extraneous matter as I could from the downstairs; most of this extraneous matter has now been sequestered in the spare bedroom that serves as my computer room/private dump. It will continue to shame me by its existence, but now, at least, the shame is mostly confined to a single 120 square feet of planet Earth. And that is as about as interesting as I can make this weekend sound.

I’ve discovered a little area of webiverse where mycosis fungoides people hang out and discuss their concerns. I was excited at first. Here I was, a stranger in a strange land, and I had found other inhabitants similarly stranded. Lurking on the site for a few weeks has taught me that I really don’t have life all that bad. My world may be rocked, but existence goes on virtually unaffected. There are people out there disabled, disfigured, and even actively dying from this. I know none of them well enough to offer any comfort, and I feel that my relatively minor symptoms almost disqualify me from participating much there.

I have been contacted via email by a couple of people from there, but I’m on guard. I’ve been burnt by friendly greetings from the web before, and I don’t want that to happen again. I’m more suspicious of friendly overtures from complete strangers than I used to be. It’s a shame in a way, since I’ve made some good virtual friends. But I’m too needy and too vulnerable right now.

Additionally, I don’t know if I can really cope with others who are even needier and more vulnerable than I am. I’ve acquired more than a veneer of selfishness, a sort of “self-ish defense”. I keep to myself more than ever at work now, and am glad when I can come home and stay there. That’s probably what the tidying up this weekend was all about. It’s more comfortable to be at home if I’m not surrounded by messes accusing me of sloth and apathy.

I’m suspicious not only of others, but my own body. Every rash is suspect now. The steroid cream I have is powerful, and causes a fair amount of stinging and burning. The skin where I use it regularly has greatly improved regarding the rash, but could hardly be said to look normal. It’s thinner, almost paper-like in some areas, and sheds a fine dander on the inside of my clothes. I’m constantly on the search for new patches, and agonize for way too long if a red spot is simply winter dryness or if it is a new outpost of abnormal T-cells. One gets treated with an oil based emollient, the other gets blasted with steroid. My butt is the most current site of ambiguousness, and I was forced to make The Prof check it out thoroughly last night. If there is anything more likely to kill off ardor than butt inspection, I don’t know what it is. I have to admit, this is one indignity that did not occur to me until need actually arose for butt inspection.

Illness is not for the weak or the proud.