I’m weaning myself off of Keppra (the drug that is responsible for most of my troubles *). The withdrawal causes sudden headaches and continued spaciness accompanied by irritability (why yes, I did indeed take the kids to a birthday party with lots of hammering going on today). I hope I’ll recognize myself once this is all over, because I kind of don’t right now. Did I mention I’m also still dilating my left pupil three times a day due to iritis? And I’ll be doing that all week until I finally see the eye doctor on Friday? I can barely use my computer or laptop because I don’t want to mess with the monitor brightness settings. So most of my [extremely important] transactions are taking place on the phone.

But hey, my bumpy “chicken skin” is almost gone! And the soles of my feet aren’t hurting these days!

I’m craving routine like I currently crave chocolate. A nice predictable run of weeks, into which I can insert the really good things like normal meals and regular exercise and scheduled blocks of productive writing time. But that is going to mostly have to wait a few more weeks, until all the holidays are over at last and there is a more solid block of school days. (And then – whoops! – I’m going away for a few days.)

Tomorrow, I see Dr S, my melanoma surgeon from April 2013. It’s almost laughable I need to be seen by him. What can he tell me, at this point? Wear sunscreen? That it will take another year before my surgery scar completely stops hurting? (That’s what he said last year.)

But I’ll also see Dr P, and either Nurse Practitioner K or R, and that will be good. They are good people to share good news with. And I’ll walk out of there with the date of another hurdle, my next CT scan. Another long morning of fasting, another bottle of berry-flavored barium, another IV, another trip through another expensive machine. Hopefully by the time that date comes, I’ll be grateful for a disruption to my routine.

*In college, my fiction writing workshop teacher gave us a writing prompt in class one day,which had us selecting as a first sentence any one of a series of statements (which he later revealed was from a psychological screening test, given to prospective retail workers, I think. The one I chose was,”I know who is responsible for most of my troubles.” Try using that as a first sentence and see where it takes you…