Venting…

I’m tired. I’m frustrated. I’m stressed (Merry Christmas… ho ho ho). I’m aching…

Needless to say I’m not taking life in general overly well right at the moment.

Add to this the fact that I have this really cool new feature (dark tan pigmented spots that don’t itch, that don’t hurt, that aren’t raised, that really probably are nothing but which I’m totally not happy being told I should ignore because this… like the knuckle bumps and the fact that for a few weeks I could barely bear weight on my toes six months before I was diagnosed… is probably just me being silly and over-reactive) .

So, I’m venting.  It’s my party and I will bitch if I want to.

People who downplay a compromised immune system have started to totally irritate me.  I’m sick of hearing how someone with a compromised immune system is getting sick for some convoluted reasoning.  When you have deliberately (or by the misfortune of your condition) destroyed your immune system in an effort to save your own life, you get sick.  Granted some of us aren’t allowed to get sick and if we do we are obviously not as sick as other people, but that is more a genetic defect of being female rather than any other situation.

I know that if I walk passed a germ, bacteria, virus, fungus, whatever… it is going to jump out and get me.  This is less my being histrionic, more being realistic.  I don’t think I have malaria because I feel crappy a couple days after forgetting to use hand sanitizer and sanitizing wipes after I take the pager from the guy who has three kids at home all of whom have been to the doctor for upper respiratory infections.  But if I start to cough and sniffle after a couple days, I smack my forehead with my hand for being an idiot.

I’ve been lucky.  I haven’t been hospitalized yet for it.  It will happen eventually. I’m a little scattered sometimes.  I forget I’m not a normal person who can push elevator buttons all willy nilly and not have to hurry to the bathroom and immediately upon getting off the elevator and disinfect my hands.  I try to remember I’m a freak.  Sometimes I forget.

If you don’t have to worry about stuff like this, be grateful and go on.  Don’t dump because some of us can’t.

I can’t just not look at dishes and assume they are clean.  I can’t shrug off egg or chocolate or ketchup or whatever on a plate or glass or spoon.   I would love to be able to.  I can’t.

I also can’t spend all my time thinking about all the years that I have spent waiting tables and knowing that people pick glasses and cups up with bare hands by the rims.  These people aren’t as careful (paranoid) about washing their hands as I am.  Silverware ends up on the floor and put back in the bin.  Silverware is picked up by the part that touches food.  The silverware bin gets cleaned once a month.  People don’t use the scoopy thing when they put ice in a cup… they scoop the ice with the cup which means their hands end up in the ice.  Tables don’t get washed off as well as they should.  The “check” ends up in the waitress/waiter’s mouth before it gets put on the table.  Even when silverware comes all wrapped in the cute little napkins, the silverware didn’t wrap itself, it was washed (if it is metal) and came out of the nice hot dishwasher and someone wraps it.  They touched the napkins.  They touched the silverware.

I can’t spend all my time on it.  But there are times when I remember and I dwell on it.

They I FIDO (Forget It Drive On).

But I know it is there.

I know that no matter how careful I am.  No matter how careful my sisters and brothers in the “I’m destroying my immune system in an effort to stay alive” club… you can’t avoid being human.

It would be great if germs were so grossed out by us that they ran in fear when we walk past.  They don’t.

Don’t dump on us because we get sick.  Don’t dump on us because we are a little on the cautious side.  Maybe there is a reason.

Okay, I’ll climb down off of my soapbox now.  I think I will leave it sitting where it is though… I don’t know where my feet have been and I was standing on it… I will probably need to use it again later any way.