On the front of the feeling of not feeling so well, there's really nothing new to report. I still can't hear out of my right ear, still can't sit up for more than a few minutes at a time, and certainly can't be trusted to walk much further than across the room.
Yesterday (that woulda been Monday, the third day of November, 2014 AD), I had all intentions of going to work for half a day or so. Alas, that didn't quite work out. I got up and got dressed but couldn't make it to the front door before I was weaving and wobbling all over the place. So, my dreams of going to work were pretty much shot. Now, that brings up the point that I'm now out of sick time at work and will be soon out of vacation and personal days as well, which will mean that money will be hard to come by, and that scares the holy bloody living hell out of me, but I can't afford to let that bother me right now, because quite honestly, I've got to worry more about getting myself better above all else. So I'm just going to take all the steps necessary to get my body better and work with my employer to use the company sick bank and then go to the state, if necessary, to make sure that I can get some form of short-term disability. It's just that all this stuff is frightening, and I don't like to be frightened by life. I only want to be frightened on my own terms, but then again, who doesn't?
The day progressed, and I continued to feel pretty sorry for myself. I had a hard time getting up and moving around, the medications were particularly hard on me, and I was struggling to make it through the day. My mind was racing, my body was abuzz from the medication, and I was just really sad. It all culminated when the wife and I went out for a few minutes and she turned on the CD player in the car. In the deck was a Jerry Garcia Band bootleg from 1980 or so that opened with "I Second that Emotion", and as the band launched into the song, the crowd went wild, Garcia's opening guitar licks wrapped around the audience and began their ascent into musical bliss. As the music swelled, it hit me like a gut punch that I could not hear a single note in my right ear. Nothing. Not a beat, not a bassline, not a guitar note, not a cheer from the crowd, nothing.
I finally cried. I finally let myself wail openly for the loss of my hearing. I let myself bawl like an infant for a good 30 seconds or so. This hurts. Not in a physical pain way, but in a deep way that I can only barely begin to describe. I'm a musician. I'm an ethnomusicologist. I'm passionate about music in ways that most folks don't understand. Now, I'm sitting here spinning, in fear that I may never hear music the same way ever again. That scares the hell out of me. I know that there are other folks who have gone through this, and it's their experience, their strength, and their hope that is getting me through this right now.
But the facts is this.... I'm at a crossroads. I'm in my mid-forties. I'm in the midst of a serious health crisis that I don't even understand yet. I can either give up and surrender to the self-pity and allow myself to be sucked deeper into the vortex of misery or I can keep fighting.
I've gone through a ton of stuff in my life and I've somehow managed to come out of it all so far. This ain't gonna be no different. The uncertainty is terrifying, but what the hell. It's a new adventure and may lead to new opportunities to discover previously unknown degrees of happiness and fulfillment in life.
So I will allow myself the occasional lapses into self-pity, but I will not let it control me and I will not allow it to define me.
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