The Hospital

I hate hospitals with a passion.

I hate hospitals and medication and procedures and being sick.

But more than that, I hate not knowing what's wrong with me when I'm not feeling well.

For the past few months I have been feeling light-headed and having intense pressure in my head, especially around my ears.

For the past few weeks I've been losing my vision.

Everything goes white, colors melt together and/or everything gets blurry. Words don't make sense when I'm having one of these episodes and it makes it impossible to read, much less write.

The doctors don't know what's wrong.

Actually, my primary care doctor is just now being forced into looking into what's wrong with me, she's been a little too focused on my transition and not enough on my pain and other medical issues.

Here's the biggest problem, I'm scared.

I don't scare easily, but I am so scared that all I want to do is cry.

I have taken my 182 IQ for granted. My love and easy learning for languages and knowledge have been things that were just there. When someone would say something about how smart I was, I would shrug it off. Not because of false humility but because to me, there was nothing special about it.

Now I feel like I'm getting stupider.

I know that's not what's happening, but when I can't think of simple words like leg, when I'm someone who grew up reciting Hebrew prayers and reading Shakespeare for fun... well, it's a little scary and unnerving.

The worst thing is that because of what happened a few months ago, because of the reactions of people, because of people pulling away from me, ignoring me, because I don't think I could bear losing another person because my life is too intense, or fraught with drama and tension, too dark or because I'm too controversial, or whatever the reason is, I don't say anything about how bad it actually is.

I don't tell my parents or other family members, I only tell Cherie when she makes me and that's usually when things have gotten really bad, and even then she doesn't know how scared I am.

Words are my life and whereas before I could have written this entire blog post in ten-fifteen minutes, I started writing it at 6:45pm and it's 7:23pm now because I had to keep stopping to remember words and trying to figure out how to spell them and type them properly.

I went to the hospital today and saw the pain doctor and then went to the eye clinic. I was up there from 9am until 2pm and when I left, I knew everything that wasn't wrong with me, but still didn't know what was wrong with me.

And I'm still scared.

And I can feel myself, or at least that part of my brain that is still functioning, that's telling me to leave and go off somewhere by myself and go blind and paralyzed somewhere away from everyone so I don't have to be a burden. And I know Cherie would be pissed off if she knew this, but at the same time I have to think of how much simpler her life would be. I mean, obviously those who have walked out of my life (or signed out of it, typed out of it, whatever) are happier and better off than those who stayed right? And yes, I'm doing well since they've left, better actually than I was when they were in my life. I'm still a bestselling author, my books are selling like hotcakes over on Amazon/Kindle. They're selling like fire over on ARe and Mickey's Duke is #20 on Bookstrand. I'm doing well professionally, better than I could have ever dreamed of.

Except for the whole loss of vision, comprehension, dizziness, pressure, pain, inability to walk because of dizziness and pressure thing.

And I'm looking at the clock now and it's 7:35pm and I'm upset and disgusted and so disheartened because I have to go back to the hospital on the 24th and I'm wondering what they will tell me. What they can tell me. We think it's neurological, or that there's a cyst on my spine. All I can think of is the fact that I'm having such a hard time actually thinking.

Seeing. Reading.

Most of all writing.

I hate not being able to write.

Since serving in the Army I've lost the ability to dance and now reading and writing.... these are the things that keep me, kept me, sane all of these years and while I don't regret enlisting in the Army and I'd do it again in a heartbeat, because I loved serving my country, I do wish that I wasn't losing so much.

So, I'll be going back to the hospital soon. Not looking forward to it, but hopefully coming home with some answers, a diagnosis, a treatment plan.

A fucking cure.

That would make all of this a whole lot easier for me.


-Vicktor Aleksandr B (7:53pm)