Dragons?

  I am almost embarrassed to write this: Good News/ Bad News .  

Good News: I am off TPN( IV feeding) and the PICC line(which was sewed into my arm and threaded into my heart for the TPN) Is out!!!!!! I no longer sleep with the sound of the machine, or have to pee every hour or so, or be upstairs in my bedroom 12 hours a day! Freedom!  

 Bad News: Just before I went off it I began to feel weak, have shivering episodes, and the day after, Wednesday, I spiked a temp of 101.8 degrees. I spent several hours lying in bed soaking wet, sweat rolling down mybody and face and into my ears, too miserable to move. Eventually, I put towels over the wet sheets and slept.  

Called the surgeon the next day, and the first thing he did was have someone come take the PICC line out ( it was supposed to stay in two weeks "just in case"), then called in antibiotics. All day my temp was 99-ish, but we packed the car to leave for PA to see my parents the next day anyway.  

Alas, by 7 PM, it was 101 degrees again, so I called the answering service, eventually spoke to one of the docs, and there we were on the road to New Haven, yet again. We got to the ER at 10 PM and sent Rene home an hour later. I got a bed upstairs at 2 AM, and fell asleep by 4 AM. They woke me at 6. Big Gun antibiotics, IV fluids, and I was home by 4 PM the that day, Thursday  

Alas, my last chance to see my parents before they go back to Colorado had to be canceled. After Mom and I cried over the phone for a while we began to concoct a 83rd birthday party for my father in CT in Feb. Hope it works, and they both stay healthy enough.  

 So, how am I doing? Well, I hate plucky people, but one part of me is certainly moving pluckily onward. I got up this morning, made my protein shake, drank my fluids and kept going. I am refusing to cry in front of Rene, who is sick of the whole uncertainty thing-I don't blame her, I am too-I am telling callers that I am doing much better, concentrating in the part about being off the TPN, I am making appointment of one sort or another to fill up the time we were supposed to be gone. These are all the right things to do, I know.  

The dark half of me, of course, is waiting for the next shoe to drop. The image just arose. High above my head is the dragon of misfortune, multi-legged, many with pointy green leather, the kind the old shoemaker in some fairytale makes).She is huge, with shimmering, multicolored  scales, and she undulates above me, periodically blocking the sun and the stars until the whole universe is black as coal.  

Her face changes as she coils and uncoils and recoils above me. Sometimes it reflects a mild malice with a laissez faire attitude, others times She seems more angry, mouth frowning, eyes narrowed, calculating, other times, She is pure malice, big ironic smile, every tooth showing, eyes mere slits. And sometimes it is hatred pure and simple, shining out of Her eyes, radiating across Her face, and out into the universe. She carries great power, when She wants to, and uses it as She will.   

 Now and then, She'll glance down and notice me, often when I am staggering to my feet from my last crisis. Sometimes She lazily kicks out one of her many legs, loosing her shoe at me. It make a beautiful loop-de-loop and land softly, causing some very minor problem. Other times She kicks more vigorously, and that shoe comes right down through the air with the surprising wallop of a boxing kangaroo, and I end up back on my a$$ again. It's happened quite a lot lately  

Now I do not think this is something I did, or punishment for past wrongs, or because I am a Pagan. I think it is just life or fate or all random, and so many have it so very much worse than I do it is almost unbearable to think about. But I can still see Her, The Dragon of Misfortune, keeping her eye on me, one of her many legs swinging the next shoe to fall.  

Blessings, Margo