Four times a day, I shove the red rubber foot and a quarter worm that I hold in my right hand [that's right, my "right" hand], into my terwilliger until its snout says, "ur in." I then direct the "result" into a plastic pail to be quantified and logged in my "Daily Urination Log". That's right, I've joined the Urine Nation. Six, noon, six and midnight I do the deed. Often, I'm left with an uncomfortable sensation — although the process is more uncomfortable than painful — that resembles an urge to urinate. This sensation keeps me awake when I'd rather be sleeping. I believe I'm living on 3 to 4 hours of sleep a day. Today I tried to go to the gym to exercise. I could only exercise about 20 minutes, but I did feel hale enough to go to the senior room where I attempted to play cribbage. I hesitated to join in playing cribbage because I suddenly feared I couldn't remember how to play cribbage after a lifetime of playing cribbage. I imagined at first that my mind was going, but I believe, now, that my exhaustion is so severe as to deprive me of my full mental capacity at times. If you think I can do much writing in this state of mind, you must be losing yours. My life resembles the life of someone in a railroad car where a terrorist bomb has just gone off. However, I am messing around with rewriting some very old poetry that I cannot do much damage to. I sent five of them off last night when I wasn't sleeping. I asked my urologist the other day, if I would be needing to do this "drilling" for the rest of my life. He didn't make any promises but suggested he has a few tricks up his sleeve. Meanwhile, for the next few months, I'll be trying to adjust my life to this daily boring process.
Despair about my inability to sleep and consequent exhaustion has finally driven me to seek counseling. First meeting on the 10th of month. I live every moment of my life in a sort of daze, a trance. I feel so dizzy at times that I make mistakes in medicine, and I can't carry on reliable conversations with my care givers. Last week, I asked Mertie talk to one of the KP nurses for me so that good information would be transmitted. I dread bedtime approaching. I seem to have no emotional resources with which to meet my painful existence. I'm quite a wimp.
In the midst of all this confusion and despair, Jessica Gleason, editor at online journal Aberration Labyrinth, accepted two of my poems for publication. They were written in what I think of as my Cannon Street period, quite different from the poetry that came out of my time at Eastern Washington University as I was escaping my addiction to alcohol. The journal fits quite nicely the poetry I was writing at that time. I like the poets I find myself among on the journal's pages. I'm too tired to feel much pleasure.
Despair about my inability to sleep and consequent exhaustion has finally driven me to seek counseling. First meeting on the 10th of month. I live every moment of my life in a sort of daze, a trance. I feel so dizzy at times that I make mistakes in medicine, and I can't carry on reliable conversations with my care givers. Last week, I asked Mertie talk to one of the KP nurses for me so that good information would be transmitted. I dread bedtime approaching. I seem to have no emotional resources with which to meet my painful existence. I'm quite a wimp.