Estivating

In summer I estivate.

And like a bear hibernating in winter, from time to time I'll stir in my sleep, poke my head out of my den.

But that doesn't mean it's over.

It will be, not very long from now. You who know me long and well already understand that this quietude is just the usual seasonal stuff with me. I get very sick with increases in airborne pollen. According to news reports, more and more people do, and more and more are experiencing the effects I feel.

It's not always what you'd expect. Sneezing, wheezing, coughing, watery itchy eyes - well, sure. But once you're extremely allergic to thousands of substances, it goes way beyond that, into being totally incapacitated.

There's profound fatigue, weakness, dizziness, loss of balance, copious sleep, cognitive problems, total airway obstruction, inability to communicate. Itching that leaves you bloody every morning from scratching your skin off in your sleep. It's the allergies - not my other health problems - that render me so disabled that I can't work. It's why I lost my dream job and went on Social Security Disability.

This time of year, healthier people sometimes lose patience with me. Some can't understand how I can do physical things one day, then be totally useless again the next. Or, when I'm not bedridden, how I can move around doing stuff, but find it almost impossible to communicate.

Sometimes when they hear my strange hoarse almost-silent voice I suddenly I see the little light bulb go on over their head. Like they connect the voice with the histamine gumming up my synaptic gaps.

At the same time I can't express myself, I'll have trouble understanding others. My perceptions are flawed: --Are you mad at me?! --no, wasn't even thinking about you!; or, --Isn't this FUN!! --no, actually I'm going home now, ok?

So then this failure to relate becomes a two-way street. And perhaps a bit annoying.

Someone who's like a brother to me knew from his allergic wife how this illness affects personal interactions. He talked with me about its impact on one's relationship to the world.

I like his perception. It's like you can't interface quite right, and you know you can't, but you're not sure how or where it's gone wrong. You try to scramble about to understand and fix it, but that only seems to make it worse. You end up with damaged relationships yet you can't quite figure out why. You may lose jobs or friendships, and be left with nothing but utter confusion about how it happened.

It all adds up to a bizarre juxtaposition of hard and "soft" symptoms and when they can't understand it, sometimes people lose patience with me. And I can't fault them for it.

So I tend to drift along in silence until I get a better grip on health. I'm almost there, it's August, and the turnaround starts up soon.


Still...

Enough really interesting things are happening that maybe I'll overcome my distaste and dislike of the little cognitive glitches and such I'd have to swim around in order to blog.

This time of year is always good for object lessons in the limits of my logical self.