Friday, December 22, 2017

2017.12.22

I've been making an ass of myself lately. Oh, lots of reasons. Drinking. Holidays. Uptick in MW's dementia. Just an overall sense of drowning in hopelessness and defeat.

So, desperate, I reached out on social media and became an ass.

There's nothing for me on facebook. It's a mockery of human contact; which hurts bad, because my real life is so lonely and isolated. Posting on facebook was too sad to handle, so I deleted my account - unfortunately I'd already embarrassed myself by telling my story and asking for help. Like a pathetic asshole.

Then I got drunk and wrote some blog entries. Those were a lot of fun. Deleted now, of course, and nobody reads this anyway, so no damage done. Except to my own pride. I'm better than that; a better writer than that. Eh, maybe I used to be. 

Anyway, it's past time to sober up (some) and get right. Five years so far and MW still doesn't think/know/believe she has HD. She doesn't (can't) work anymore and rarely leaves the house. We have no family connections - except my brother, who politely stays away - and only a handful of friends who also, not so politely, stay away. It is a meager existence, and the fucking holidays don't help any. All this to say, we won't make it through the new year. We can't last another 365. 2018 will be the year something terrible happens with MW and she'll wind up in a hospital, a grave, or treatment.

Or not. Clearly I'm very bad at dealing with this. So I may very well be pissing in the same stream come 2019. Unless I myself am in the hospital, a grave, or prison.

***

Full disclosure - when I started this entry, I wasn't drunk. I am now. It's the day before Christmas break and the office is closing early. Most everybody is gone and I'm drinking at my desk.

And trying hard not to embarrass myself.

In that spirit, let me document what's been going on with MW as concisely as possible behind a $4 bottle of Moscato. Jesus.

A little over a month ago, MW contracted some weird fungal infection on her foot. To guess, I'd say it's because she never wears socks when shopping for shoes. Whatever the case, she has a creeping black funk all over her toes. 

We bought a tube of Lotramin. It sat on the counter for three weeks. The fungus spread. 

MW would not use it because it is "medicine". Everybody knows taking medicine is always more dangerous than having the disease. Why, just look at prescription pharmaceuticals. So much better off not taking drugs and just, I don't know, killing yourself.

Sigh.

Eventually, however, she had to start using the cream. This only after she talked to everybody she knows and they all wondered why the hell she hadn't just started treating it in the first place.

They think she's crazy. 

Heh. 

Anyway, now MW is going through three pairs of socks a day. A sock can only be worn once, then thrown away. You can't wash it, you fool, because Lotramin is poison. Pure poison. If you put it in the wash, it'll infect all your clothes with poison.

I'm not exaggerating when I say, by the time this is over, we'll have spent hundreds of dollars on socks.

There is an upside to this condition. MW has become so obsessed with her feet, she doesn't have time for anything else. Which is not great. She still stays up all night, worried, constantly asking me to look at her feet, agonizing over every new blemish; but at least this is a real thing. It's actually there. She's not just blurting "Cancer!" over and over again while imagining some ache somewhere.

Still dementia, but easier to deal with. Sort of.

***

IONIS. 

I have to be careful now; this is the stuff that sets me off - especially when in my cups. 

IONIS is starting trials for a drug designed to "slow down" the progression of Huntington's Disease. 

Seems like something good to be a part of, no?

I'm low. I'm not much of a person. I lie to my wife daily. I hide everything from here. I'm a closet alcoholic. Oh, and the end result of all this cowardice and subterfuge is that I -and I alone - get to watch MW descend into madness and death. 

Because I have no choice; or rather, the only choice I have is to speed that grave-digging plow and put her in a hole early. 

Saint or monster. Toss a coin.

Now a wrinkle: this IONIS drug is a hopeful thing; but not a cure. Should it change my decision to confront MW with the truth? 

Monster says no; Saint says....? Saint says...? 

I have no fucking idea what Saint says.

I'm kind of afraid Saint's dead and Monster is all I have left.

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