Towards the Solstice

In the dream I was in a wheelchair. I was wheeling myself up an incline, which was a little strenuous. It was a long, empty hallway. At the end of it was my elementary school gymnasium. I talked to all my old teachers, some of whom were quite elderly by now. There was another man in a wheelchair. I bumped into him by accident and my purse managed to get tangled around one of the arms.
"Sorry," I said. "I'm new at this."

Then I was in a hospital parking lot. It was familiar to me. The hospital where my grandmother died, and where a few years later I would be hospitalized four times in one summer for complications of dysautonomia.

It was chilly and raining, so autumn maybe. I was going to my car, but it was raining so hard I was having trouble seeing. I didn't have an umbrella or anything else to keep the rain off. I half fell into a chuckhole in the asphalt and almost got stuck. Muddy water soaked my socks and shoes.

It started to rain even harder, to the point I felt like I was choking on it. I went over to a little awning near the parking garage to see if I could wait out the worst of it.

There was a nurse standing outside. "Not much fun is it?" she asked. "No kidding," I said.

My dreams tend to be more figurative, so this very literal dream stayed with me. I'd been tiptoeing around the idea of a wheelchair in my mind, wondering what it would be like. My mind decided to try it out in the only reasonable venue. My subconscious.

In the actual world, the cortisone shots I got in my hips are wearing off and the bursitis is back in force. There's not a day that doesn't find me on the couch with my heating pad, in spite of the heat.

There's a lot of uncertainty at this point in my life which makes me feel restless and sad.

In other less crestfallen news, the issue of Pain Pathways I was interviewed in is now on the newsstand (at Barnes and Noble at least). I sent a copy to my parents.

Also, I've found a doctor whom I don't hate. He's actually attentive and willing to work with me on the pain issue. I was so shocked, I actually didn't think he was going to write the prescription. I kept expecting him to renege at the last moment. But he went ahead and wrote it and just like that....

I don't know why my old doctor refused to budge on the issue.