Many Thanks, Continuing Apologies

I extend my deepest thanks to those people who responded so generously to this post. You're immensely kind, and I'm very grateful. And my great thanks to those bloggers who drew attention to my situation and encouraged people to offer what support they could.

I felt a bit better for a few days at the beginning of last week, and then I got worse again. I'm in very terrible shape physically now. And then, several days ago, another problem returned that had mercifully gone away for a while. I've sometimes had a lot of trouble with my eyes, and it's very difficult to read on the computer. During these periods of eye trouble, reading books (my strong preference) is close to impossible, unless it's a large-print edition. (In the last couple of years, I've sometimes tried to get hold of large-print editions of those books I especially want to read. But most books aren't available in large print, unfortunately.) As I'm writing this post, for example, the text gets very blurry every minute or so, and I have to move my head different distances from the monitor to try to allow my eyes to focus. Sometimes I just have to wait a few minutes for it to clear up. (And moving my head around is singularly inadvisable, as it's likely to set off or worsen various pains.)

Now, it could simply be that I need a new prescription for my glasses, especially since I haven't had my eyes examined for ten years. I hope that's all it is. If it's something more serious, I have the same attitude I have about getting various medical tests done now: there's no point. I can't afford any kind of treatment anyway, so there's no reason to know about some horrible disease that's going to do terrible things to me in X months or Y years. Sometimes, impotence renders ignorance preferable. Not my usual approach to, well, anything, but there you are.

I mention the eye business because, thanks to the generosity of a number of you, I can afford one or two visits with a doctor (but no major tests -- see above, and most tests would cost much more than I can pay for anyway), followed by getting several prescriptions filled. I definitely want at least one very good drug for pain relief; although the worst of the back pain has subsided for now, it's only a matter of time before that or some other awful pain visits me again. I'm going to wait several days to see how I feel and how my eyes are, to determine what seems most urgent. Thank God the excruciating back pain is gone, but I'm still far from comfortable. But I think that's just my general physical feeling of complete shittiness now. Except for agonizing pain such as the pain that started a couple of weeks ago, it's getting harder and harder to differentiate between the ongoing problems and new ones.

Again, there's a great deal I'd like to write about. Unfortunately, at the moment I can only focus on writing for ten to fifteen minutes at a time. Then my various pains and whatnots necessitate moving into a different position, lying down for a while, cracking my head against the wall, etc. If I blogged like many others, I could knock out one or two posts in each ten to fifteen minute period. Sadly, I don't write that way. Too bad.

So I'll try to get some writing done in the coming week. I have no idea how successful I'll be. I'm afraid it's not going to be much. And for that, my sincere apologies.

My very grateful thanks once more. Hope to be back in some form soon.