The Body

Last sunday I woke with a pain in my side, just about where the rib cage begins its taper into the spine, the exquisite kind of pain that's both sharp with sudden movement and dull and throbbing when at rest, the inexplicable kind that shoots from the back through to the front of the chest and that prevents deep breaths and coughing of any kind. Well, that pain receded a bit this past week until today when I coughed blood--not a lot, but enough that I called my doctor who immediately directed me to the emergency room for x-rays. Five hours and a rather vague diagnosis later, it turns out that, after only one month from my last hospitalization, I've got brewing the beginnings of yet another chest infection. Since Cipro no longer works (my body has grown resistant to just about every antibiotic), I'm on course to do another two-week round of iv antibiotics, the only antibiotics that work for me now. Whether this latest treatment finds me in the hospital again, or at home, I won't know until monday. What I do know is that I'm angry. And frustrated. It's nearly impossible to come to terms with one's own body working so vehemently against itself. I don't mind exerting all the time and energy I do three times a day doing treatments and physical therapies, but when that isn't enough, what can one do? All I want to do is write poetry.

The body isn't a theory. Just wait and see. We're all sealed-in facts.