Zee Blood

I feel I should write about the guy on the L who told me he slept through 9-11 (at his desk, and had to be evacuated by the Illinois secretary of state); and the guy who was offered the job as the head of No Child Left Behind, and refused it, but not before pilfering 100 pages of Cheney's stationery to amuse himself with; and my realization that no one sells bedspreads anymore, just duvets and coverlets and dust ruffles--but what moves me to write is my blood. Which does not move as quickly as it should. It is sluggish. In yoga yesterday after doing a complicated bend up to the side and put your arm through your leg to meet your hand on the other side, we rested. And when I rested I felt that my skin was on fire and had a severe hot flash and I got scared and I felt like crying. I don't know if it was because of the pain or because of the fear. I never know that. I think it was at first because of the pain. I couldn't stay lying down )even as I write that I don't know exactly what I mean, but I know I couldn't) so I sat up and drooped my head and tried to breathe, which was somewhat uncomfortable because my asthma and allergies were acting up. L was supposed to meet me after class and I sat outside on a step waiting, with my head bent over. I called him and he had gone half a mile north by mistake, but I felt I couldn't get up and meet him. I had to keep sitting. Some friends from the class offered to give me a ride, which was very nice. Finally L showed up and we talked then walked to Tac Quick for dinner. I felt somewhat lightheaded and began to feel better.

I had had a big hot flash last week in yoga, but I thought it was bad because I hadn't brought water. This time I had plenty of water during and after class. I emailed my hematologist and called her today and she said she didn't think it was my blood disease, because my blood showed it had thinned out last time it was checked. Today my head feels filled with blood, the way it does after you bend over, and my ears are red. She said I could come in and get my red blood count checked if I didn't feel better. The thing is, the possibility of getting hit by this again feels dangerous, but I asked her, and she said it wasn't. I'm used to, by now, sweating at the drop of a hat, sweating when I do the least bit of exercise, and I don't want my fear to keep me from exercising. Today I've been all teary because I'm afraid. Afraid of what? Afraid of the dizzy and light-headed and on-fire feeling. Afraid of feeling the nest-of-mettles again (O please don't throw me in the briar patch! I mean it!) Afraid of death. Because it seems a precurser to dying. To Death. It felt like death cooled over. A prelude. My father died of an aneurysm that burst while he was shopping for clothes. He had a terrible headache that morning. I don't have a terrible headache. My doctor has told me what a blood clot might feel like. I don't feel that. I'm feeling all the things that everyone expected me to feel when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, but didn't feel. (Just typed "blood cancer" by mistake. Hmm.) I'm feeling, Why me? Why this stupid extra blood-making? And of course it blends into my lifelong asthma, caused in part by exertion. To have something wrong with your blood is to have something wrong with your most vital and essential body-self.

I called the Bouncy Shrink and left a message to see if I could get on Black Cohosh again. It interferes with something else I'm taking, but I'm hoping she can taper me off that and substitute something else.