Stairs, pt. II

I’m writing this earlier in the day than usual. It’s a chilly morning, and I just had deglution therapy. I’m doing much better there. I had a scrambled egg, a cookie, coffee and yoghurt in therapy. The food is ok, though I’m still eating very slowly. Liquids are much harder to swallow. I usually cough before I get into a rhythm and start taking them fine.

I wish I could say I’m ok, and certainly everyone treats me like I am, but I’m not. I don’t feel at ease or happy. My life has always been like this. It just makes me feel more lonely than ever because there seems like I have no one to talk to around me. And it not like I can just walk away from the situation, which I normally would have done before. Now I just nod. “Yes, I feel fine.” That’s what people expect anyway, and it’s what I’ve learnt works.

Writing here is the only outlet left for me, so that’s why I complain so much. I wish I could share some better new but my life right now is not full of them. Every morning I wake wondering what will be wrong today. It’s not that I want something to be wrong, but only a reaction based on experience: it’s been a constant struggle since the dizziness started. And for all the people that have appeared, many more have gone away. If I think of the people that I used to see when I came to Mexico when I lived abroad, none if them are in my life since the stroke.

Today only physical therapy is left, and I’m deadly afraid of it. The therapist said today we’ll go up to the gym room again, which means I’ll have to use those terrible stairs again. I don’t care if it makes my body better, it makes my mind go crazy and just thinking about it makes me feel nervous.

But if you ask in my house? “Oh, Luis can do it. He’s doing great.”