Garden"...this is the song that has been playing in my head, swirling around me like a silken scarf, as I busy myself with small morning chores.I cannot sit for long, you see...or lie down...or walk, with any comfort. I itch, is what I do. Everywhere. I have had an allergic reaction to Hydroxychloroquine...a medication prescribed for Rheumatoid Arthritis...and other diseases.
I didn't know why I was itching, for a couple of days. And then, after I scratched...welts appeared, thousands of them. I felt nauseous as well...
I stopped taking that pill. My doctor tells me it was a side effect he hoped wouldn't happen. He was dispirited...we had tried everything else. My body reacts to anti-inflammatories, in different ways, high blood pressure being the usual effect to watch for.
But hives? I've never had hives before. My friend DB suffered through a case of Poison Ivy recently. I remember thinking the rash must be like measles or chicken pox.
Measles has nothing on hives, if there was to be a contest.
Sleep is next to impossible. I have tried various remedies, and they work a bit for awhile. Then I happen to turn or otherwise disturb my skin...and a raging conflagration of itching begins.
And to make health matters a little worse, yesterday I was diagnosed with cataracts. I am suddenly prone to what I used to believe were "senior's maladies".
How did I get here? Wasn't I just 18 not so long ago? I certainly don't feel any older, although the calendar would beg to differ.
These were the thoughts running through my head, last night when I couldn't sleep. And then I went a little further. I began to stew at the unfairness of it all. I worked up a good, old, self-righteous anger, shaking my fist at Creator. Why me?... I asked....Whatever did I do to deserve all these things that happen, as I age?
Perhaps you might know what I'm talking about...a rant in the mind that has a lot of "me's" in the dialogue.
And while I was on the subject, I told him...How come I can't find anything to soothe the Itch? Switching to abject misery, I asked for help...and then as a furious attack of Itching began again...I begged for help.
As I drifted into an uneasy sleep, I felt an awesome weight lifted...as if huge Boulders I had unconsciously begun carrying had been taken off me...and I knew some answers would come.
Upon awakening, I found a cream that helped...and then I took a dreaded antihistamine, something I had not taken for years, since they had a bad habit of putting me to sleep for a few days and also a side effect of displays of temper.
I was desperate...and I kept hearing the name of the antihistamine I was to take. I took it, finally, convinced it was going to make matters worse. But it didn't. It worked.
Would Creator give me the name of something that wouldn't have worked?
Many messages come to me in the words of a song I haven't heard for awhile. If a song suddenly pops into my mind, I have learned to take note of the words.
What are they trying to tell me?... I ask myself. What are the rest of the words to the song? And if I don't know them, other than a refrain, I will look up the words. I have never regretted it. I have always received exactly what I need to hear at the tim
e.As I made coffee, I heard the song..."I beg your pardon, I never promised you a Rose Garden, Along with the Sunshine, there's gotta be a little Rain sometimes."
I got the message.
I still have the hives; I still have cataracts; I still have RA...but I am no longer in a well of Self-Pity.
Self-Pity is just an excuse to do nothing about the situation.
And as the message says...I beg your pardon...but get with the programme. Be grateful for the good and accept the bad. Shelve the Pity Pot.
Happy Canadian Thanksgiving, Everyone!
