July 10, 2011
I cannot differentiate between poison ivy and poison oak, at least not when it is scattered about my skin like gasoline burns. No, perhaps gas burns seem more plasticized. My body looks like it has been dragged through the drainpipe of a teenage girl’s bathroom sink, covered with pink powders and weird gels. “Put this on it, put that on it, it will help.” Bullshit, I say.
I’ve started crushing some beers, and the whisky hour is fast approaching. It has become crunch time for medications. Which pharmaceutical to choose? The one for the poison (which does nothing) or the liquid variety (which numbs the senses). Few recommend mixing, but it might come to that.
The itch of the skin is enough to send you off a cliff, laughing the whole way down as you enjoy those last few seconds while your mind is occupied by something other than flesh-tearing desires and the belief that you have the willpower to overcome them. Someone — not just anyone, a health-care professional — suggested that gasoline burns away the rotting skin, but that was hearsay of which even the pro admitted having never engaged in the routine. Truth is that even several drinks into the afternoon I just don’t have the balls for it. I don’t have the balls to put gas on my balls. Yeah, it might take, but I’m one errant spark away from more plasticized skin as the least of my worries. Don’t stand too close to the barbecue.
I can hear a train in the distance, and an early Leonard Cohen album. I do not question the era that I am in, but rather my seemingly rapidly approaching doom. Oh, sisters of mercy! They are waiting for me, but I know that I just can’t go on.
***
July 11, 2011 (3:47 a.m.)
Finally the pain became unbearable and I awoke only to reaffirm that I was living this nightmare. I can take it no more! I ran to the bathroom to cover myself in calamine lotion, swabbing it deep into my patchy red skin. With every sense of release it only heightens the depressing terror on another patch of skin, a new territory ready to be conquered.
Returning to bed I lie naked, listening to the barely audible hum of a lone mosquito, waiting for my breathing pattern to signal sleep and the moment of its attack. This one is smarter than the average parasite as it quietly stirs in the distance like a vulture aware of the gingerbread man lying flat, motionless and uncovered on the tray before him. He is patient and unwavering as the early summer light begins to creep through the blinds.
Perhaps I can wait him out. When the light is brighter maybe I can siphon some gasoline from a tank and pour it over my body like watered-down maple syrup. Would other forms of ethanol suffice? I would much prefer to pour cheap bourbon on my skin, both for odour and financial purposes.
A lone bird begins its morning routine in a very rhythmic fashion. It seems unlikely that sleep will occur now, and that medical assistance will be necessary to achieve slumber in the future.
***
July 11, 2011 (6:01 p.m.)
Still waiting for the drugs to take hold, as Hunter would say. Willpower is dead and if I could locate a wire brush, I would scrape it over my entire body with such vigour I would surely land in a mental institution if witnessed by a stranger.
I can’t take it anymore! I shouted in the early morning, waking everyone up for the first time all vacation. We got in the car and headed for the part-time walk-in clinic. On the way, I determined it was my third time to the doctor in the last ten years.
I had taken a solid hit along the boards in a senior hockey game during the last shift of the opening period. It wasn’t the biggest hit I took that period (I had a knack for getting clobbered, and getting up), but it hurt like hell and I couldn’t lift my left arm up to shoulder height. Of course it was a provincial playdown game, so it was almost three hours from home. And of course being that far from home meant we were short bodies to begin with. I cursed and spit through the game and then went to the hospital the next day to find out I had cracked ribs and would miss the remainder of the season.
The second trip was after finding a lump on my right testicle. It is significantly larger than the other, so I just assume it is the more potent and thus more important of the pair. Of course this is more of a psychological pain as you book a visit to the doctor and then wait a week and a half until they can see you, and tell you that you have cancer. I had a bath every night, each time playing with myself until my fingers were pruned. I was sure I could even feel the lump growing.
The trip to the doc was a disaster, with her embarrassed that I just dropped my pants to show her, compounded by her being unable to find the lump and yelling at me in broken English, “Where is the mass? Where is, the mass!”
She was nice enough to set up an ultrasound in my own small town. The technician lathered my scrotum with sticky blue gel, while she explained to me that she had seen a picture of me playing guitar in the school newsletter and that her daughter would be attending our little rural school next year. Maybe she’d be in my class? Diagnosis negative.
Now it is at least six hours after the first cortisone pill has been ingested and the waiting game is on. I was given some advice by the doctor, who spent less than two minutes with me before selling the thirteen-dollar subscription from his “little pharmacy,” as he called it, or what I would call the box of drugs in his unlocked cupboard. The advice was to take it with food, and beware it is a stimulant, and it will keep you up. You should have it in the morning, but in this case take it with lunch, which I did before driving home, reading a Vonnegut short story and then crashing on the couch for two hard hours of sleep. Stimulating . . .
***
July 12, 2011
I just got up from another lengthy nap. Thirty hours in with no real signs of progress on the treatment side of things. My belly has got it the worst. My naval is ravaged, red and raw. It looks as though it was raped by underage gangbangers with scabs and scarring becoming its new identity. No doubt it will become permanently damaged and increasingly sheltered as a result of the decimation and discrimination. At least in their excitement they missed their mark.
The itch was gone, briefly, last night. My skin tingled when I got into the hot tub around 8:00 p.m., and felt almost itch-free upon exiting. Perhaps it was the perfect combination of beer, wine, whisky and cola, gin shots and bromine. There were even a few slugs of champagne from the bottle while in the tub. I thought the cortisone was taking effect, but my theory has changed and if things continue this way today I will be heading back to the tub, and the liquor cabinet, fairly soon.
***
July 14, 2011
My exceptionally gorgeous wife will not lay a hand on me as long as it looks like I have leprosy, or syphilis or whatever detrimental illness she has concocted for me in her worried mind. This is not helping any. At least she has put away the long sleeves and rubber gloves and has begun to show off her youthful and pure skin again. This is progress, at least it would be if you were fourteen years old praying for the mere notion of physical contact anytime over the next few weeks, or months, or at least before the cool winds pick up again in October.
It appears that the cortisone is finally doing its job. I had hoped that it would take effect sooner, enabling me to save a few for the next bout of skin failure, but it seems unlikely at this stage.
***
July 15, 2011
VICTORY!!! The old saying “absence makes the heart grow fonder,” rings true with some variations. Absence makes the skin’s sensitivities stronger, or perhaps abstinence makes the sex last longer. Her phobia is gone and I am the champion. At least until it returns or she finds another manner in which to be repulsed by me. I am confident the day will come when I once again feel uncomfortable in my own skin. So it goes, hey Kurt? So it goes . . .
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