Obnoxious Bitch

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

I Work, Therefore I Am

I’ve had pain in my lower abdomen, mostly on the left side, since Saturday.  It feels like there’s something stuck in there, but that’s impossible, so I can only conclude that I’ve got some inflammation in my colon… which I can’t seem to do a fucking thing about.  It hurt so badly yesterday that I was in bed and asleep shortly after I got home from work.  That sort of sucked, because I woke up at around 12:30, and having already had a good 5 hours’ worth of sleep, I was awake for the next probably 3 hours until I finally… ahem… medicated myself so I could grab a few more hours’ rest before having to go to work today. 

Some of my friends, who know how sick I am, and how much pain I’m often in, have asked why I don’t just take some medical leave rather than continuing to show up day after day no matter how much I hurt.  There are a few people in other departments, with less time on the job than I have, who have gone on leave for less serious problems than mine, so why am I hesitating?  I’m not sure why, but it’s almost a point of honor for me to not cave in to this disease, and at this point working every day is the one thing in my life that’s giving me some semblance of being “normal.” I’m having a difficult time living up to the expectations in the areas of my life unrelated to my job, so at least I have one thing I can cling to as proof that I’m not totally useless.  As long as I can keep paying the bills, maybe I won’t feel so bad about all the other things I’m unable to accomplish, or how I’ve gotten to the point again where everything I do, every plan I make, is subject to revision or outright cancellation because it’s all dependent upon whether or not my guts are giving me trouble and the degree to which they are.

Even my choice of dress more often than not comes down to how much or how little my stomach hurts on any given day.  Yesterday I wore jeans, and even though they weren’t that tight, it turned out to be a poor choice, because they were riding right at the point on my belly where all the trouble seems to be.  So today will be a “muumuu day,” and I’ll wear something that isn’t fitted around the waist at all (and hopefully disguises the abdominal distention that comes with the gut-ache).

I’m hoping this bout of inflammation will hurry up and go away, but in the meantime, I’ll sit at my desk for eight hours and do what I must to earn a paycheck.  After all, those muumuus ain’t free!