Footless

 I don't suppose life would be easier if I cut off my feet, but it is something to think about these days.

I'd have to get new shoes and learn a new method of transferring. 

On the plus side, no restless legs because those start in my feet. No discomfort in my feet, which are often too hot at night if I put socks on but too cold if I don't.

I guess I will just hate my feet, like most of my body.

Why is Lyle Lovett singing to me?

When I turned on my iPad at dinner Thursday, Spotify was open. That’s how I go to sleep these days, unless I am listening to Joe Mantegna read a Spenser book. I can’t understand what Joe is saying, but his voice and the rhythm of Spenser stories soothe me.

But Wednesday night it was Spotify, and the song it was playing when it went to sleep (like me) was the Lyle Lovett tune It Ought to Be Easier.

I have heard the song lots before (I have the album on iTunes), but that day was the first time I realize it was about me!

Thursday provided a good example of why may life ought to be easier. The greatest hits:

• It started soon after midnight. Fame decided to kick her bed right behind my chair, which was next to my bed. I knew I’d need my sister to move the bed to enable me to move, but waited till the morning to bother her.
• When I am on the toilet, the hardest thing is to pull up my pants, so I was quite pleased that I got them up on the first try that morning ... until I saw my boxer hanging out of one leg of my shorts. I had managed to pull up my shorts but not my boxers, so had to pull them down again and start over. That was still easier than my next trip to the toilet.
• My sister had just gone to walk Mom over because of the ice. My niece, who has the room above me, was out. No one else hears Fame when they are upstairs as my nephew and brother-in-law were. I fell. Not badly but my right leg was bent funny under me, and it hurt. Fame barked to no avail. Eventually, I kicked myself out into my room, which looked worse but my leg was straight no longer underneath me. Then I waited for Mom and my sister.
• I have learned to wait for help before getting out of bed for dinner. My niece was helping me, and we almost made it. But I slid off the cushion, so my sister had to come rescue me again.
• After dinner, I took Fame out to poop. I had barely gone on the downward part of the ramp when I started sliding and didn't stop. I tried again and again to get back but nope. Again, my sister had to rescue me.

That ignores a lot, but you get the gist: It ought to be easier.

Satan=my lift

In Matthew's gospel, Peter suggests that Jesus not go to Jerusalem and die, which seems awful sensible. He is, however, rebuked with the line, "Get behind me, Satan." Jesus seems to feel he must go. 

Whenever Mom offers to use the lift to help  me to the toilet, I am tempted to respond with a similar rebuke.

It is easier and safer to use the lift. I know this.

I also know that manually transferring to the toilet is one of the few times my legs get exercise these days. 

More sleep troubles

I bought a new over-bed table this week, replacing my great-grandmother’s (really) with one that was a little more sturdy. And it is. I fell backward last night because my left leg was jumping so I was sitting up in bed. My head glanced off the new table and it hardy moved. Nothing fell off.

I needed something more sturdy because I was going crazy with my sleep machine not turning on automatically, as it is supposed to.

It does turn on sometimes, but not with the mask I like.

It was a new hell to breathe deeply into the mask, hoping it would start.

Now, the machine is on my table, so I can turn it on.

My  head’s OK, too.

What's wrong?

Numerous times a day, I pause and ask myself what’s wrong. Obviously I know. Disease, division, death, not to mention the old standard — disability.

But, I mean, what’s wrong now? Why do I feel like crying now?

It’s not as if any of this is new.

I thought the prospect of a vaccine would helps, but that’s all it is: a prospect. And it seems farther away now then before I had signed up. I am signed up but so are tons of others.

And it’s cold.

And my shoulder is bothering me.

And my glasses hardly stay on. My face anymore. I actually bought a pair online in hopes they will tide me over. I’m waiting for them to come.

And my wheelchair has problems.

And I know I am better off than many people, which makes me feel worse because I am complaining.

A lot is wrong.