Catching up: Epidural and me

Prompt: Catching up

~*~

Forgive me please, fellow writers. 

I am in Week Twelve.

It is my 34th time living through Week Twelve.

These 12-week rounds began in December, 2013.

I used to call Week Twelve the "dreadful Week Twelve."

It was truly dreadful.

But the dreadfulness has eased up in the past year.

For that I am thankful.

But, it's still rough.

Mainly the exhaustion-fatigue, or fatigue-exhaustion. 

Today, I tried to approximate how Week Twelve feels now compared to pre-dreadfulness. 

Maybe it feels like Week Eleven.

No. Like Week Six used to be? 

No. Week Six used to be worse. 

Perhaps, maybe, it feels more like Week Ten?

Hmm. I think that is the closest, maybe.

Week Ten.

The fatigue-exhaustion is physical and cognitive.

I have low-level pain all through my body, right underneath my skin.

But it is the exhaustion-fatigue that is the biggest challenge. 

I've told my neurologist that I don't have brain-fog; I have brain-mud.

And sometimes my brain feels like scrambled eggs, which happens mostly starting during Week Eleven.

I'm so used to these cognitive states. 

I observe scrambled-egg state with curiosity and a type of fascination.

Brain-mud makes observation an almost inaccessible activity. Observation is way off in the distance somewhere while brain is stuck in mud.

Today, as I tried to access my brain status I thought, 

My brain doesn't feel like mud.

Maybe it feels more like silt; if silt is slicker, less dense, than mud.

That I am here tonight, at the writing workshop, during Week Twelve, is evidence, of improvement.

I just never know if any improvement will actually stick. 

So I let go of expectations about outcome. 

Next Tuesday, August 10, 2021, I'll get another stick, another puncture.

Epidural Number 35.

And begin the cycle again. 

Sweet relief, hopefully, awaits me again for Round 35.

We've become friends, Epidural and Me.